‘J Street’ is quick to pounce on NYT piece shrugging off end of Jewish state

Ian Lustick’s landmark argument for alternatives to the two-state solution in the Times Sunday, which expressed indifference about the demise of the “Zionist project,” elicited a sharp response from Zionists in the Times letters page today. One is from the liberal Zionist lobbying group J Street, which is alarmed that the Times would give any credit to a one-state outcome.

Writes Alan Elsner, the group’s vice president:

The point of the two-state solution is to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and to fulfill the Palestinian right to self-determination…

The main problem with Professor Lustick’s analysis is that it is a recipe for permanent conflict. Both Israelis and Palestinians want to fulfill their national aspirations in their own country. Neither will be satisfied with less.

Untethered to statist Zionism in a rapidly changing Middle East, Israelis whose families came from Arab countries might find new reasons to think of themselves not as “Eastern,” but as Arab.

Now Elsner. Note how an American liberal is attached to traditional identity politics:

Likewise, the notion that Israelis whose families came from Arab countries would consider themselves Arabs is absurd. They managed to preserve their Jewish identity for 2,000 years in exile. Why would they give it up now? In any case, as Israelis of European origin increasingly marry with the children and grandchildren of families who came from Arab lands, the distinctions between the two are fast eroding.

The Times letters section also features a rightwing Zionist talking about self-determination and the Jewish state. Ken Jacobson of the Anti-Defamation League is angered by Lustick’s indifference to the Jewish state:

Anyone who cares about the Jewish people and takes into account both the wonderful aspects as well as the immense tragedies of Jewish history must shudder at Mr. Lustick’s willingness to dismiss the existence of the first independent Jewish state in 2,000 years. His argument about what will ensue after the abandonment of the goal of two states is a fancy version of a one-state solution that ends the concept of Jewish self-determination…

Lustick’s essay ultimately reminds us of the need to get moving toward that goal…[a two state solution]

Unfortunately, Palestinians still have not made that leap primarily because they, like Mr. Lustick, do not place any value on a Jewish state.

Israel may no longer exist as the Jewish and democratic vision of its Zionist founders. The Palestine Liberation Organization stalwarts in Ramallah may not strut on the stage of a real Palestinian state. But these lost futures can make others more likely

Lustick’s frankness about the end of the Jewish state is freaking folks out. Here is a leading rabbi from Los Angeles saying Lustick want to destroy the Jewish state.

Not only to eliminate it, but to crucify it on a one-state platform of “ruthless oppression, mass mobilization, riots, brutality, terror, Jewish and Arab emigration and rising tides of international condemnation of Israel,” all of which would result in the withdrawal of American support.

The rabbi is fearmongering because he worries that the Times will break the tie between American Jews and Israel.

The debate is a fresh reminder that the media have got to start talking about the ideological issue here, Zionism, the belief in the need for a Jewish state, and allow liberal Zionists to make their case to young liberals. One basis for Zionism is the belief that Jews will be unsafe as tiny minorities in western societies. And I’d point out that while these Zionists are talking about Jewish self-determination in Israel, The Times has several articles covering the competition to become the next Fed chairman. The contenders include Janet Yellen, Lawrence Summers and Donald Kohn. Present Fed chair Ben Bernanke and past Fed chair Alan Greenspan are also mentioned. I believe all these folks are Jewish (I am not sure in Kohn’s case). Staggering success. Why do we need self-determination as a nation in a disputed land when we’re a religious group that’s doing just fine in the United States?

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About 1% of US Jews have moved to Israel permanently. What’s stopping the other 99%? They don’t want to ! Clearly, some of the other 99% are sympathetic to the Israeli cause, but they won’t move to Israel. Because they’re better off here in the US.

Today’s conditions in the US are as different as they could possibly be with the European society in which Zionism emerged. US Jews are succeeding in US society, largely unaffected by a rapidly decreasing anti-Semitism, and intermarrying Gentiles. Not surprisingly, the younger generation is increasingly indifferent to Israel.

Put it another way: if US Jews were forced to move to Israel, whether they wanted to or not, would they (1) rejoice? (2) oppose it tooth and nail?
The answer is (2).

As I wrote in another thread, each year 3000 Israeli Jews move to Canada alone, a nation with only 10% of the population of America, while 3000 American Jews make aliyah to Israel.

Second, those American Jews who move to Israel find that reality is a lot worse than their fantasies. They often get mocked for their accents, there’s resentment at the usually more well-off Americans(Jews from English-speaking nations are called ‘Anglos’ in Israel) and many who had well-paying jobs end up with a lot less. Israel is also quite expensive so it’s not like you can live on your pension and be a king.

And thirdly, Jews in America have it very good. Whenever I visit my friends and family around the country the vast majority have it great. The only people who would leave for Israel are very ethnocentric Jews who get nervous around Gentiles.

And at any rate, any American Jew would half a brain can do the simple maths and see that the demographics don’t add up. If you move with your family now where will those kids be in 30-40 years? And more importantly, where will be those kids’ kids be in 70 or so years? Your grandchildren? (I’m assuming an age of around 30, just starting a family).

Even if Israel annexed the West Bank it would not have room for all the Haredim. In 70 years there will be 90 million Jews in Israel if birth rates continue, and they will, because Jews in Israel have an obsession with birthrates and the Haredim will breed like there’s no tomorrow because that’s what they religiously believe. They’d rather live in abject poverty than not have 6-9 kids.

Will 90 million Jews fit in a small path of land, even in Greater Israel? The irony is that we will see massive emigration in the decades ahead. Not necessarily because Jews in Israel are unsafe; but rather because there’s no room.

“They managed to preserve their Jewish identity for 2,000 years in exile. Why would they give it up now?”

Why does it have to be either /or? Why did they have to give up their heritage to become Israeli? Can’t a Jew be Jewish and Arab ? Can a Jew listen to Fairuz?
WTF is “Israeli” anyway ? Ashkenazi superiority, guns and hummus ?

And maybe they weren’t “in exile”. Maybe they were at home.
A bit like John Trudell singing “we weren’t lost and we didn’t need any book ”

“The main problem with Professor Lustick’s analysis is that it is a recipe for permanent conflict.”

So is Zionism . Perhaps a rights-based approach might be less nihilistic.

Yes, neither the one state solution under the Palestine Mandate nor the two state solution under the UN has been successful, because neither side has persuaded their holdouts to accept the equal human rights of their adversaries in the here and now.

Their identity goes back to 1200BC, hence 3200yrs
as Pagan tribes, but a collective identity of Judaism
from 536BC, hence 2500 yrs.
Over 50% live outside of the Country Israel.
If they lose it, they will continue to live as confessors
to Judaism, why not.
I chuckle to myself as to my ethnicity of Italo/Greco,
born in the US living in Germany.
Could i claim Macedonian/Roman heritage now or in 2K yrs?
Could you imagine all the US Italian descendents on the
East Coast claiming Napolitan & Sicilian association in
2K yrs? Rather pathetic, no ?
ziusudra
PS I don’t even recognize Catholicism anymore.
PPS correction. There are no Ashkenasi People.
Only the Sephardi went to Europe & were inadvertently
called Ashkenazi by the unwitting Germans.
Ashkenaz meant their ‘schools of learning’

“Likewise, the notion that Israelis whose families came from Arab countries would consider themselves Arabs is absurd. They managed to preserve their Jewish identity for 2,000 years in exile. ” (Elsner)

Absurd is Elsner that cannot distinguish between a person’s culture and his religion. No matter how hard the Zionists tried to de-program the Arab Jews even by having European Jews marry their children to Arab Jews, in the end the Arab side will still shine through.

Absurd is Elsner that cannot distinguish between a person’s culture and his religion.

A few years ago, I sat in a concert hall in West Jerusalem, on a Saturday night, listening to an amazing Palestinian singer (Lubna Salame) sing from the repertoire of Oum Kolthoom. All around me were religious and traditional Jews, still in their Sabbath clothes, who knew every word to every song, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

I don’t how many members of that audience considered themselves “Arabs”, but what do you call someone who is so deeply connected to a culture, its language, its music — as his or her own (as opposed to appreciative outsiders like me)?

Here is Salame singing Enta Omri (recorded at that very concert, I suspect):

@Shmuel: I personally listen from time to time to Arab singers as Fairuz, Abd-Al-Halim Hafez, Oum Kolthoom and, of course as an Iraqi Jew, to Nazem Al-Ghazali. I try to brush up my Arabic by speaking and reading (my parents language was not Arabic, but Jewish-Aramaic). I consider my self as an Arab, but frankly Shmuel, do the Palestinians and the Arabs in Arab countries also consider us, the Mizrahim, as Arabs? I never heard this term by Muslim Arabs or in Arab TV’s, Radio or Newspapers, especially not those of the Islamic movements that refer to all Israelis Jews as “The Jews” (Al-Yahud). To be fair, I must say, that also most Jews, even the Mizrahim, don’t like this term.

Any way, I very glad that Ashkenazi like you sends to MW some smells from the East. In the following video, Lubna Salame sings with David D’Or song for peace “Soon a Dove will come” – and I add – Inshallah!!

Shmuel, the Enta Omri music is by Mohammed Abdel-Wahab (1902-1991). He also wrote the music for the national anthems of Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and the UAE.

Ella Shohat, of Iraqi Arab Jewish roots discusses how they weren’t allowed to have a memory of their own in Israel but had to assume the one of European Jews :

Our history simply cannot be discussed in European Jewish terminology. As Iraqi Jews, while retaining a communal identity, we were generally well integrated and indigenous to the country, forming an inseparable part of its social and cultural life. Thoroughly Arabized, we used Arabic even in hymns and religious ceremonies. The liberal and secular trends of the 20th century engendered an even stronger association of Iraqi Jews and Arab culture, which brought Jews into an extremely active arena in public and cultural life. Prominent Jewish writers, poets and scholars played a vital role in Arab culture, distinguishing themselves in Arabic speaking theater, in music, as singers, composers, and players of traditional instruments.

In Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia, Jews became members of legislatures, of municipal councils, of the judiciary, and even occupied high economic positions. (The finance minister of Iraq in the ’40s was Ishak Sasson, and in Egypt, Jamas Sanua–higher positions, ironically, than those our community had generally achieved within the Jewish state until the 1990s!)

The same historical process that dispossessed Palestinians of their property, lands and national-political rights, was linked to the dispossession of Middle Eastern and North African Jews of their property, lands, and rootedness in Muslim countries. As refugees, or mass immigrants (depending on one’s political perspective), we were forced to leave everything behind and give up our Iraqi passports. The same process also affected our uprootedness or ambiguous positioning within Israel itself, where we have been systematically discriminated against by institutions that deployed their energies and material to the consistent advantage of European Jews and to the consistent disadvantage of Oriental Jews. Even our physiognomies betray us, leading to internalized colonialism or physical misperception. Sephardic Oriental women often dye their dark hair blond, while the men have more than once been arrested or beaten when mistaken for Palestinians. What for Ashkenazi immigrants from Russian and Poland was a social aliya (literally “ascent”) was for Oriental Sephardic Jews a yerida (“descent”).

Stripped of our history, we have been forced by our no-exit situation to repress our collective nostalgia, at least within the public sphere. The pervasive notion of “one people” reunited in their ancient homeland actively disauthorizes any affectionate memory of life before Israel. We have never been allowed to mourn a trauma that the images of Iraq’s destruction only intensified and crystallized for some of us. Our cultural creativity in Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic is hardly studied in Israeli schools, and it is becoming difficult to convince our children that we actually did exist there, and that some of us are still there in Iraq, Morocco, Yemen and Iran.

Greetings Shmuel,
…. What do you call a Person who is so deeply connected to a culture, language, music?……
His subjective experience with the world outside of his allowing him to grow appreciating more ‘Menschkeit’
Some yrs back , i heard of Japanese descendent Brazilians moving back to Japan due to unemployment. They would be as boiterous as the Brazilians listings to the music thru the morning hours. They were terribly disturbing to the Japanese!
On the other Hand those vile Squatter settlers in the WB probably wouldn’t recognize Klaesma if it bit them & spiting at any Israeli calling him a Nazi if he shows fairness to a Falesteeni.
They are becoming a negative priveleged ‘front’ against Israel. M.Begin should be a rolling in his grave.
ziusudra
PS Enjoy your post. No critique, your S.P.O. is grand, but i lose you feeling that you go into conundrums.
Ask an Irishman, how do i get to the church?
Ah, yes. Go along the road, you’ll enjoy the sweet song of the birds.
You’ll come to a tree; i used to sit there as a child, turn left, walk on to
approaching farm house, yes, it is made of wood…………

“Ask an Irishman, how do i get to the church?
Ah, yes. Go along the road, you’ll enjoy the sweet song of the birds.
You’ll come to a tree; i used to sit there as a child, turn left, walk on to
approaching farm house, yes, it is made of wood…………” Ziusudra.

I am not sure I appreciate your analogy.

I and many others view this method of giving directions as part of our charm???.

So much better than, “Take the next left , then hang a right.Its the first house on the left, now go away, I,m busy.

Just as a lot of European Jews were native speakers of Yiddish (as my grandmother was: her son, my father, learned German in high school and was able to converse with her — outside her limited English — with her Yiddish and his German.)

Last april I visited my family in “israel”.As usuall,I went to the Azeezeya beech in haifa that is called now hof hacarmel for lack of imagination.Walking around engoying the mountains and the sea,I heard loud noises .I could hear the dice and the backgammon chips being banged on the board.Morrocan arabic,screaming,cussing,jabbing.I looked around and saw two groups of backgammon and card game going on with on lookers yelling at the players and each other about every move and play;And all was in arabic.Really helarious to watch and listen to.And the rivalry was serious.The only clue to who they were was when they called each other,or one told one player hezkel,that was a stupid play.They are arabs, and jews,Like iam arab and christian.Mahane,To see and here these men playing , joking and speaking in arabic,And I tell they looked like they were sabras,Made me feel the special connection between our two groups in israel palestine.Maybe the arab jews are the key to bring about dezionising the israelies.

“Likewise, the notion that Israelis whose families came from Arab countries would consider themselves Arabs is absurd. They managed to preserve their Jewish identity for 2,000 years in exile. Why would they give it up now?”

Lustick didn’t say they would give up being Jewish, he said they might call themselves Arab. There are millions of Jewish Arabs, who for centuries were both.

Isn’t the article like saying: ‘The notion that Israelies whose families came from America/ the Soviet Union would consider themselves American/Soviet is Absurd…” etc.

Didn’t J Street give a deadline of 1 or 2 years from half a year ago by which a Palestinian State would have to be created?

So are they believing that much in the Palestinian State’s future, or more likely don’t they really believe it is that much of a criteria for determining the Israeli State’s future? If it was such a factor, Lustick would be right.

“Why do we need self-determination as a nation in a disputed land when we’re a religious group that’s doing just fine in the United States?”

If that’s central to your argument, Jews thought the same thing in Germany, “It can’t happen here.” They kept believing it, even the rich and powerful ones, until the German government took it all away.

I don’t see it happening here either, yet. But conditions are oddly similar here in the US to the rise of a repressive society in 1930’s Germany: loss of civil liberties, spying on the populace, rotten economic conditions, beating of war drums, blaming minorities (Jews and Muslims and immigrants in growing fringe movements) for the misery all around us.

You don’t want a country that expresses a yearning for self-determination? Fine, don’t support it. But IF the United States grows visibly hostile to Jews, which pretty much guarantees that most other countries have already gone that route, don’t expect me to believe that you will lay down your life screaming about international human rights when you’ve got a country that will accept you with no questions asked. Or maybe I’m just unaware about your survivalist skills and know-how with forging identity cards.

If Israel didn’t exist, where would you go for safety, Mr. Weiss? How about your family? Their families? Maybe you all can hide in Annie’s cellar.

For all it’s many faults, I back Israel. If my life and my family’s life depended on it, I would escape there first and ask what the hell is going on in the West Bank later. I’m not going to waste time showing the secret police a hyperlink that describes the difference between a post-Zionist Jew and a liberal Zionist.

I want Palestinians to have their own land. They lived there before Israel was established, and they deserve their own space. It’s disgusting what Zionism has become, but that doesn’t mean I’ll throw out the baby with the bathwater. Israel is not a colony, and it was no mistake. If Israel was created in the Arctic, people would still find fault with it’s existence. So thank God it’s there at all.

well where would i go? why do you think jews are more at risk here than others, and we don’t have a spare country at the expense of others. and if jews were at risk don’t you see how zionists actions in palestine, especially in light of the israeli government and their hasbarists continually speaking in the name of all jews, hold any responsibility for negative reputation/response to follow? why do you see israel as an asset instead of the core of a serious problem?

Good question, Annie. It’s the same one I asked Phillip. Assuming you are Jewish: if, and I mean IF, the United States turned on Jews would you flee with your loved ones to Israel if your lives depended on it?

I admit it freely. Yes I would. Of course I would. And that’s why I want it to exist.

And no, I don’t blame Israel, or Zionism, or Jabotinsky, or the Rosenbergs, or Marx, or Bernie Madoff, for anti-Jewish sentiment. I blame people who irrationally hate Jews for anti-Jewish sentiment. They’re like bedbugs, you just can get rid of them. It’s impossible.

No, I don’t see Israel as the core of a serious problem (for Jews). But I do see it as a core problem for people whose religion won’t let them live among Jews as equals, and who want Jews to be a “protected” class. That refers to Christians and Muslims alike, whether now or in the past, in Europe or the Middle East.

Yes, Jews have found favor in lots of countries. Sure, it’s happened dozens of times in history. It’s happened int he US. But each and every time, eventually the political winds shift and Jews pay the price.

no, i am not jewish. and that was my point. many governments throughout history have persecuted the left, the intellectuals, the ‘radicals’, the anti fascists. what gives jews the right to a spare country to run to? why not everyone have a ‘back up’ country? iow, you didn’t address/answer my question. what makes jewish persecution so special or different than racism towards others? islamophobia in america is a much more prevalent problem it just doesn’t get the press. whereas there’s a whole industry around highlighting anti semitism as if it’s a huge problem here, it isn’t. it’s not more prevalent than racism against blacks, hispanics, native americans (all evidenced in the horrific election profiling)..etc etc. but of course they do not have well funded orgs constantly on hand to advertise racism against them or a separate word distinguishing prejudice against them as opposed to a descriptor shared by society against ethnic prejudice..racism.

so what i hear is your(jewish) persecution is somehow more special or unique, more prevalent, that should afford you with a back up coutry, one built on the ethnic cleansing of another people. it’s absurd.

so what happens if the government comes after me, for my thoughts? where’s my spare country? in the history of humanity the persecution of jews pales in comparison to all injustice in the name of racism. and it pales in comparison to the injustices perpetrated against other ethnic groups in america throughout our history. so why is your alleged persecution so special? or why should it concern me more than violence against women? or child abuse? or any of the real problems facing america today. there’s absolutely nothing going on socially anywhere in the world against jews that even comes close to the persecution zionists inflict on palestinians day in and day out, nothing. it’s a glaring hypocrisy.

But I do see it as a core problem for people whose religion won’t let them live among Jews as equals, and who want Jews to be a “protected” class.

oh please! what a farce this statement is when jews have a country that prevent their minority from equality based on ethnicity. what people besides zionists seek jews to be a ‘protected’ class. either they are the core problem or they are not. and who are you quoting? why the quotemarks?

>> … I do see [Israel] as a core problem for people whose religion won’t let them live among Jews as equals …

Zio-supremacist Jews don’t want non-Jewish people living as equals among them. That’s why Israel is supremacist “Jewish State” – a state that favours:
– its Jewish citizens over its non-Jewish citizens; and
– citizens of the Jewish faith in countries around the world over its non-Jewish citizens.

And let’s not forget about the Palestinians who are barred from returning to the homes and lands from which they were ethnically-cleansed, and from living in equality as citizens of Israel.

>> … I back Israel. If my life and my family’s life depended on it, I would escape there first …

Funny thing, escaping to a country that is perpetually on the verge of being wiped off the map and pushed into the sea.

>> Israel is not a colony …

Israel was and remains a religion-supremacist and colonialist enterprise.

>> … and it was no mistake.

Correct. It was very deliberately created – and has been very deliberately expanded and maintained – thanks to a combination of:
– Jewish terrorism, ethnic cleansing, land and resources theft, colonization, devastation, murder, oppression and torture; and
– financial, economic, military and political support from the U.S. (and other nations).

Just imagine the hysteria if someone airlifted the Palestinians a few hundred MBTs and some heavy artillery, and taught them how to effectively operate them.

Would that be a sight to see- especially considering how they flip their shit over stone-throwing or some Palestinian shooting soldiers with small-arms (including those of WW2 vintage) when the soldiers are being a part of the occupation, or in response to soldiers doing all those other lovely things they do.

Yeah, eljay. Perhaps the most absurd thing to that argument is that if the US/world became such an inhospitable place for Jews to live, Israel would lose all support and become a veritable barrel full of fish. The “haven” argument is beyond absurd, it’s unbalanced, delusional, and dangerous (which sure makes it dovetail nicely with Zionism and explains its use as a rationalization so often).

“Defamation” has been mentioned a lot here lately. It’s a perfect example of the modern day origins of this deeply-flawed spiral thinking.

But then there’s the nukes. If Israel is basing it’s “haven” status on nukes, well, I guess North Korea is a haven for North Koreans, strictly speaking.

It’s a self-fulfilling, downward spiral of a rationalization for Israel. It’s continued use really weakens the case for Israel and prevents the people that use it from coming up with constructive scenarios, methods, and actions to ensure Israel’s future as they want it to be.

That’s probably pretty obtuse, but it’s like this whole, “We want two states, but we want the US to block any Palestinian efforts to become a state.” incoherency. So much effort is spent on actions that never seem to support the stated objectives/wishlist.

“Funny thing, escaping to a country that is perpetually on the verge of being wiped off the map and pushed into the sea.”

Well, there’s political propaganda, and then there’s the reality. But just because Israel is strong (even without absurd amount of US subsidies) doesn’t mean it’s whacko politicians are immune from rhetoric. I mean, what politician here in the US doesn’t use fear to gain votes?

“Israel was and remains a religion-supremacist and colonialist enterprise.”

Says who? You? Who the hell are you?
Hamas? There’s a religious-supremacist project if I’ve ever seen one.

>> … and it was no mistake.

“Correct. It was very deliberately created – and has been very deliberately expanded and maintained – thanks to a combination of:
– Jewish terrorism, ethnic cleansing, land and resources theft, colonization, devastation, murder, oppression and torture; and
– financial, economic, military and political support from the U.S. (and other nations).”

The Jewish National Fund which inherited all of the lands from the old Jewish Colonial Societies and lands expropriated from Palestinian Arab refugees forms the plurality of the board of the Israel Lands Administration. It’s still responsible for national land use and planning. It doles out expropriated Palestinian land and builds paved security roads, provides drainage, landscaping and other infrastructure for illegal settlements in the Jordan Valley and throughout the West Bank.http://www.tarabut.info/en/articles/article/JNF-in-the-Jordan-Valley/

FYI, the Zionist Organization was established as a colonial company and set about obtaining colonial charters and mandates for immigration and settlement of Jewish colonists in Palestine. The Second Zionist Congress established the Jewish Colonial Trust in 1899. Its goal was twofold:

Dr Edar was one of the members of the Executive of the Zionist Organization and its Jewish Agency when he testified to the Royal Commission looking into the 1920 Nabi Musa riots that there was only room for one national home in Palestine, and that there could be no cooperation between Jews and Arabs. —- G.L.M.C. 2/9/1921, PRO. CO. 733/1 cited in Doreen Ingrams, Palestine Papers 1917-1922: Seeds of Conflict, George Brazziler, 1972, page 135

Of course, Jabotinsky, who was also a member of the Zionist Executive and a JNF board member expressed similar sentiments about the subject of Jewish colonization:

The logic employed by this editor is so simple and clear that it should be learned by heart and be an essential part of our notion of the Arab question. It is of no importance whether we quote Herzl or Herbert Samuel to justify our activities. Colonization itself has its own explanation, integral and inescapable, and understood by every Arab and every Jew with his wits about him. Colonization can have only one goal. For the Palestinian Arabs this goal is inadmissible. This is in the nature of things. To change that nature is impossible.

“So what? I’d flee to an oppressive state if my life depended on it. Snowden fled to Putin’s Russia–I think he had every right to do so, but it doesn’t somehow justify Russia’s human rights record.”

I never said Israel’s existence justifies a miserable human rights records. But it’s existence per se is justified by all the people in the world who still want to kill Jews whether Israel ever existed or not. That’s enough justification for me.

I don’t trust any group or nation that says Jews should be a “protected” class, because I can protect myself just fine.

I don’t trust any group or nation that says Jews should be a “protected” class,

who are you quoting here? what person group or nation says jews should be a protected class? who are you referencing and why are you repeating this?

isn’t this essentially a rational for israel’s existence? to afford diaspora jews a special status of protection, in case of future prosecution? a status the rest of us do not have, some extra country to fall back on in case the tide turns against us? there’s something extremely hypocritical about supporting this zionist country and then saying you do not trust those who would afford jews protected status, because that is exactly what israel affords jews, at the expense of palestinians. it gives jews a faux justification to prosecute others. a get out of jail free card for crimes against humanity.

”But it’s existence per se is justified by all the people in the world who still want to kill Jews whether Israel ever existed or not. ”…JusJess

Do you have any idea how irrational and extremely paranoid that is?
Seriously, you need help for this, to protect the people around you from this kind of hyserica infecting their lives if for no other reason.

I never said Israel’s existence justifies a miserable human rights records. But it’s existence per se is justified by all the people in the world who still want to kill Jews whether Israel ever existed or not. That’s enough justification for me.

The last time I checked the reported crime rate in Israel was slightly above the OECD median. That means there are still many western countries safer than Israel for those who suffer from paranoia. Try to keep in mind that the majority of the Jewish victims of intentional homicide in Israel are either murdered by Jewish family members or one of their Jewish acquaintances, i.e. most of the people in the world who are killing Jews are other Jews.

But IF the United States grows visibly hostile to Jews, which pretty much guarantees that most other countries have already gone that route…

…then what makes you think that Jews in Israel will be safe? They won’t. They’d be sitting ducks, all gathered in one place. The idea that “having your own country” makes you safe is a mistaken one. Check with the Poles during WWII, or the Soviet Union during the Great Terror, check with Cambodia during Pol Pot’s reign, check with Iraq in 2003, or the Congo today.

It’s also folly to think that Israel would be able to double its population overnight without serious hardship, regardless of the effects of any external animosity towards it. My bet would be that, in the highly unlikely event that American Jews considered it unsafe in the US, Israel would leave most of them high and dry waiting for their free ticket to the Promised Land. They’ve done it before.

My guess would be that its more likely that there will be a civil war in the Jewish State than that the US will become unsafe for Jews. And by civil war, I mean a war between Jews, probably between religious and secular. It much more likely that large numbers of Jews will be leaving Israel for the US, seeking safety, rather than the other way around.

“…then what makes you think that Jews in Israel will be safe? They won’t. They’d be sitting ducks, all gathered in one place. The idea that “having your own country” makes you safe is a mistaken one. Check with the Poles during WWII, or the Soviet Union during the Great Terror, check with Cambodia during Pol Pot’s reign, check with Iraq in 2003, or the Congo today.”

Hey, I almost got assaulted by a bicyclist today because I told him not to ride on the sidewalk. I live in the most powerful country in the world, and the law is on my side, right? Nothing is 100% safe.

My point is that Israel is an expression of self-determination for Jews, and therefore it would be at least the least unsafe country for me to live in should I have to escape the US.

And your listing of entirely unrelated countries and their own persecutions is casting a very wide net indeed in order to prove a point.

“It’s also folly to think that Israel would be able to double its population overnight without serious hardship, regardless of the effects of any external animosity towards it. My bet would be that, in the highly unlikely event that American Jews considered it unsafe in the US, Israel would leave most of them high and dry waiting for their free ticket to the Promised Land. They’ve done it before.”

Let’s hope it doesn’t happen to you then. Hope Annie’s cellar is nice and safe if it does.

Hey, I almost got assaulted by a bicyclist today because I told him not to ride on the sidewalk. I live in the most powerful country in the world, and the law is on my side, right? l.

What are you suggesting? That the cyclist took exception to you because you are Jewish? That ‘a like saying cars are anti Semitic because Jews have died in car accidents . Lots of cars in Israel.

More Jews have been killed in Israel than the diaspora since Israel was created.

My point is that Israel is an expression of self-determination for Jews, and therefore it would be at least the least unsafe country for me to live in should I have to escape the US.

So shouldn’t you move there right now and enjoy all that self determination you are unable to express in the US? Surely, if it ‘a that important and Israel is the expression if it, then you should be there.

Clearly you chose not to be there because it isn’t. And as for safety, you are much safer in the US than in Israel.

I choose to live here in the US because it’s my home and I was born here. And I have self-determination here. Should the US turn on Jews, I still have the safe haven of Israel and I’m glad it’s there. I’ll repeat that as often as it takes for you to understand it. OK?

I think it more likely that Europe would provide refuge in that case… Naomi Klein has said that it is selfish for Zionists to live in one country and warehouse another one Just In Case, in an era when global warming is depriving many people of their lands.

Ah, Europe. Which according to most of Mondoweiss is the only place where bona-fide Anti-semitism actually lives and breeds, because Arab or Muslim countries only kill Jews as a knee-jerk response to Zionism not Judaism.

“Naomi Klein has said that it is selfish for Zionists to live in one country and warehouse another one Just In Case…”

If “selfish” is the worst thing one can say about protecting one’s own life, then fine, I’m selfish. My guess is that Naomi would magically discover her inner selfishness as well if she was under the gun.

Naomi Klein has said that it is selfish for Zionists to live in one country and warehouse another one Just In Case

Of all the spurious arguments used to justify the existence of a Jewish ethnocracy (and worse) in Palestine, the “insurance policy” argument used by comfortable US and European Jews is one of the most ludicrous. It is based not on real anti-Semitism or even on imagined anti-Semitism, but on imagined, future anti-Semitism — on the grounds of which it is considered legitimate to pursue all-too-real policies of ethnic discrimination in the present.

The more “liberal” among the “insurees” will say that such discrimination must be kept to a minimum, of course, but do not oppose it in principle. As long as they are fairly sure there is a fortress somewhere that will let down the drawbridge for them when the neo-Gestapo starts rounding up Jews in Massachusetts or Merseyside.

Meanwhile, Israeli Jews are working on their own “insurance policy” — green cards or European passports. S’iz shver tzu zayn a Yid.

It is considered legitimate to pursue all-too-real policies of ethnic discrimination in the present. The more “liberal” among the “insurees” will say that such discrimination must be kept to a minimum, of course, but do not oppose it in principle.

I think that there are two kinds of Zionists:
1) those who are deluded and honestly believe that Zionism is a just cause
2) those who are informed and fully aware that Zionism is unjust
The second kind of Zionists upsets me much more. Unknowingly supporting injustice is simply ignorant, but knowingly supporting injustice is plain evil.

Israeli Jews are working on their own “insurance policy” — green cards or European passports.

Right. That’s really funny, isn’t it?

S’iz shver tzu zayn a Yid.
Es ist schwer ein Jude zu sein.
It is hard to be a Jew.

“Of all the spurious arguments used to justify the existence of a Jewish ethnocracy (and worse) in Palestine, the “insurance policy” argument used by comfortable US and European Jews is one of the most ludicrous. It is based not on real anti-Semitism or even on imagined anti-Semitism, but on imagined, future anti-Semitism ”

In an infinite universe with an infinite number of stars and planets there are going to be an infinite number of copies of this planet with slightly different histories and on some tiny fraction of them this fear will be justified. I propose that Israels be established on all such planets.

On other planets the fears of paranoid American gun owners will be justified, a totalitarian American regime takes power and starts persecuting or executing rightwing NRA members and on those planets I think all limitations on weapon ownership should be lifted.

On yet other planets JJ Abrams keeps making Star Trek “reboots”. I suspect we’re on one of those and I just don’t have an answer to this.

In an infinite universe with an infinite number of stars and planets there are going to be an infinite number of copies of this planet with slightly different histories and on some tiny fraction of them this fear will be justified. I propose that Israels be established on all such planets.

That’s the thing about insurance. It’s not about actual claims, but about “peace of mind”. A good insurance salesman will first scare the living daylights out of you and then sell you a policy to allay the fear he has just planted in your mind. If, on top of all that, you can make someone else pay your premiums for you, you’d be a fool to pass up the opportunity. No wonder JustJesse treats Phil like a simpleton.

KLeave it to a Murdoch neocon tabloid to get your info YRN. Way to go! Why shouldn’t a sovereign state want to reduce Zionist influence?

link to thelocal.fr

The report makes no distinction between the number of verbal and physical attacks. 315 insults in a country of close to 70 million is actually surprisingly good. In fact, if 315 represents a rise fo 82%, it proves that anti semitism is practically non existent.

link to wnd.com

So this reporter can’t even cite a survey, but names unnamed sources who say they have seen them. Talk about scraping the barrel!!

link to dawnofthegreeks.wordpress.com

More vague references to paranoia and fears of what might happen.

link to eurojewcong.org

When did Ukraine become part of Europe? In any case, a small faction of a party that only won 10% of the vote is hardly evidence of anti Semitism sweeping the country.

link to dailystormer.com

One man in Russia, who happens to be an anti semite, grapbs headlines with anti semitic remarks. Real smoking gun material you have there YRN.

It really says a lot when even Jews in Israel are lining up to get passports to Germany. In fact, Israel had to lobby the German government to tighten it’s stance on social welfare to stem the tide of Russian Jews opting to migrate to Germany rather than Israel.

Jews thought the same thing in Germany, “It can’t happen here.” They kept believing it, even the rich and powerful ones, until the German government took it all away. I don’t see it happening here either, yet. But conditions are oddly similar here in the US to the rise of a repressive society in 1930′s Germany

Stop being so paranoid. The same kind of crime won’t happen again. Instead of worrying about potential future injustice against Jews, you should bother about the actual present injustice by Jews.

But IF the United States grows visibly hostile to Jews, don’t expect me to believe that you will lay down your life screaming about international human rights when you’ve got a country that will accept you with no questions asked.

If the world grows visibly hostile to Jews, then that’s because of Zionism. Therefore, you’d better start fighting Zionism now.
Zionism is not the solution. It’s the problem.

I want Palestinians to have their own land.

But not all of their own land! Only 22% of it. Right?

It’s disgusting what Zionism has become, but that doesn’t mean I’ll throw out the baby with the bathwater.

It’s disgusting what Nazism has become, but that doesn’t mean I’ll throw out the baby with the bathwater.

If Israel was created in the Arctic, people would still find fault with it’s existence.

“If Israel was created in the Arctic, people would still find fault with it’s existence.

That’s pure speculation.”

Actually, I have said before that I would still say Israel is evil even if it had been established in some penguin-free part of Antarctica. As far as I am concerned, establishing a state solely for the benefit of a specific ethnicity is evil. The exclusivist, anti-human, mindset behind such a project is sufficient to condemn it.

Of course, establishing such a state in a territory where there is already a population to be excluded is far more evil.

But IF the United States grows visibly hostile to Jews, don’t expect me to believe that you will lay down your life screaming about international human rights when you’ve got a country that will accept you with no questions asked.

“If the world grows visibly hostile to Jews, then that’s because of Zionism. Therefore, you’d better start fighting Zionism now.
Zionism is not the solution. It’s the problem.”

WHEN the world was visibly hostile to Jews, Israel didn’t exist yet. While hostility to Zionism is acceptable, Hostility to Jews is unacceptable, and your statement sounds awfully bigoted to me, and rings of blaming the victim. Southern whites blamed blacks for being too uppity before lynching them. Christian missionaries claimed Africans were savages before setting their villages on fire. You’re in good company.

I want Palestinians to have their own land.

“But not all of their own land! Only 22% of it. Right?”

No, not right.

“It’s disgusting what Nazism has become, but that doesn’t mean I’ll throw out the baby with the bathwater.”

Your Arafat-inspired rhetoric fails to interest me.

“If Israel was created in the Arctic, people would still find fault with it’s existence.”

“That’s pure speculation.”

Considering Jews get persecuted just about everywhere they lay down roots, it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

But IF the United States grows visibly hostile to Jews, don’t expect me to believe that you will lay down your life screaming about international human rights when you’ve got a country that will accept you with no questions asked.

Again, if that is so imperative to you, why have you not made Alyah? Why are you taking such grave risks with your own life?

WHEN the world was visibly hostile to Jews, Israel didn’t exist yet.

Your Arafat-inspired rhetoric fails to interest me.

Just pretend it’s Bethar inspired rhetoric.

Considering Jews get persecuted just about everywhere they lay down roots, it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

Everywhere? Jews have laid down roots in the US, Australia, Britain. See any persecution?

You have to read the Jewish press, because just like the Palestinian narrative it isn’t covered much by the MSM, but yes. I do see it.

In Britain, there are attacks on Jewish graveyards, synogogues, and Jew-bashing talk is right out there in the open among the chattering classes at elite dinner parties where the power-brokers gather. It wasn’t like that a decade ago. Jews are openly intimidated on the streets by (presumably) Arab thugs, even to the point of throwing rocks and chasing them.

This isn’t at the point where Jews are being pushed out, but I never say, “It can’t happen in (fill-in-the-blank)”, because Jew-bashers always find a reason.

Zionism isn’t the reason for growing Jew-bashing sentiment, Jew-bashing sentiment is and always has been the reason. Don’t blame the victim.

“Zionism isn’t the reason for growing Jew-bashing sentiment, Jew-bashing sentiment is and always has been the reason.”

Not true. Much of the deporable anti-semitism today is misguided anger at the acts of israel and the West.

“Don’t blame the victim.”

“zionism” isn’t the victim. The victim is the innocent person who is unfortunately attacked. And no one is blaming that person, but merely pointing out the elements — including the actions of the zionist state — which led to the crime.

your statement sounds awfully bigoted to me, and rings of blaming the victim.

I don’t blame the victims. Palestinians are the victims. Zionists are the perpetrators. People are rightly mad at human rights violators.

Considering Jews get persecuted just about everywhere they lay down roots, it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

OMG! This perpetual victim mentality is really pesky. You need to acknowledge that times have changed. Nowadays, the Zionists are the oppressors.
Answer my question: Why do you bother about potential future injustice against Jews and not about the actual present injustice by Jews?

‘Zionism isn’t the reason for growing Jew-bashing sentiment, Jew-bashing sentiment is and always has been the reason. Don’t blame the victim.”……JustJessetr says

Yes it is.
If you’re a ‘victim you’re a victim of zionism and your own bigotry.
Go complain to Zionist Cult Headquarters
The rest of us are tired of your anti semitism is a inherent and eternal gentile disease [email protected]

You have to read the Jewish press, because just like the Palestinian narrative it isn’t covered much by the MSM, but yes. I do see it.

In Britain, there are attacks on Jewish graveyards, synogogues, and Jew-bashing talk is right out there in the open among the chattering classes at elite dinner parties where the power-brokers gather. It wasn’t like that a decade ago. Jews are openly intimidated on the streets by (presumably) Arab thugs, even to the point of throwing rocks and chasing them.””>>>>>

Well gee whiz—wonder what has brought this on…….any ideas?
Gimme an I, gimme an R, gimme an S, gimme a A-E–L.

jj, i think all the hasbara you’ve been reading has gone to your head.

just a little tip for you, just because whole departments in colleges are developed and funded to study and perpetuate the myth anti semitism is an exploding problem on the world stage doesn’t mean it is.

what’s glaringly more and more apparent is screams of victimhood and cries of anti semitism are the number one crutch of defenders of israel, so much so they’ve sought to change the definition of anti semitism to include criticism of israel or zionism. and then add to that a screaming chorus or victims advertising racism against jews. but…you can throw all the money and resources in the world against it, but we all know israel won’t change its policies. it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what’s going on here. all the lawfare employed against the UC system in calif, dragging it thru the courts. and there was nothing there. just a little batch or whining oppressors crying wolf. screaming “wolf wolf wolf” doesn’t a wolf make. and zionists are throwing red meat at the problem. that’s what the occupation is, red meat for the wolf. so try taking away the red meat, that is unless you WANT to attract the wolf.

Zionism isn’t the reason for growing Jew-bashing sentiment, Jew-bashing sentiment is and always has been the reason. Don’t blame the victim.

When I watched some Hebrew lessons on YouTube, I discovered a comment that said something like this: “Hitler was right. I wish he had killed them all.” When some other commenter asked this person why he wrote this, he replied: “Because of what the Jews do to the people in Gaza.” So, you can see that Zionism makes people hate Jews.

>> Zionism isn’t the reason for growing Jew-bashing sentiment, Jew-bashing sentiment is and always has been the reason. Don’t blame the victim.

Zio-supremacism publicly drove Jewish terrorism in Palestine, and it publicly drove the creation of a supremacist “Jewish State” in Palestine.

Zio-supremacists publicly take great pains to conflate Judaism, Jewishness and Jews throughout the world with “Jewish State”.

Meanwhile, “Jewish State” – the self-professed state of and for all Jews in the world – continues very publicly and very merrily along with its 60+ years, ON-GOING and offensive (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction, torture and murder.

Perhaps Zionism and its religion-supremacist creation aren’t the reason for growing Jew-bashing sentiment. Perhaps it’s all just a coincidence.

“Zionism isn’t the reason for growing Jew-bashing sentiment, Jew-bashing sentiment is [the reason for growing Jew-bashing sentiment] and always has been the reason.”

So Jew-bashing sentiment is the reason for Jew bashing sentiment.

Clearly logic is not your strong point.

And your claim actually implies that Jew bashing sentiment has always caused itself to grow. Even if we limit “always” to “from the time a bunch of people first declared they were Jews”, that is quite a long time for the sentiment to grow. It is surprising that there are any Jews left unbashed. The only explanations for that are (a) the sentiment is hardly ever converted into action, or (b) the sentiment was very tiny and grows very, very, slowly. (Or both. In logic, “or” is always interpreted as inclusive. “Not both” is used for exclusive disjunction.)

That’s wonderful you can trust your non-Jewish in-laws. Can I stay in their cellar too, along with my family and their families? I’m sure that your political conscience is as broad as the hiding spaces you would afford anyone who begged for them.

And where would those of us go once your hiding places are exhausted? Surely you would want the rest of us to be safe. Somewhere. Surely you wouldn’t want to leave your fellow Jews to a horrible fate just because you have your opinions about Israel. Would you?

I’m not Jewish. Surely you wouldn’t want to leave your fellow Jews to a horrible fate because they never stood up for the innocent victims of the Zionist enterprise, which constantly conflates Israel and its activities with what’s best for the Jews?

“Surely you wouldn’t want to leave your fellow Jews to a horrible fate because they never stood up for the innocent victims of the Zionist enterprise, which constantly conflates Israel and its activities with what’s best for the Jews?”

Thank you for replying, Phillip. But your brevity speaks volumes about what you left unanswered. Israel was created, and exists in part today, as a bastion of safety for Jews who need asylum. I ask again, if the US ever became openly hostile for Jews, and this suggests that the rest of the world had already become so, and Israel was the only bastion of safety, would you flee there?

@ JustJessetr
Have you eve asked yourself if it’s good for the Jews in the long run to make others pay the premium in innocent lives and treasure for your Jewish insurance policy? Do you think the means to your ends will never be turned against you for the same reason?

I certainly ask myself that. All the time. And I don’t have the simple answers that comfort busy fanatics everywhere. It’s a terrible situation, and I’m not proud that Jews have taken on aspects of those who have oppressed them. I admit that, freely. But it doesn’t preclude my seeing Israel as a place that expresses my yearning for self-determination, and of safety if it should come to that. I hope you and your loved ones never have to make that decision, but my family history demands that I consider it seriously.

A peace deal can (hopefully) be worked out and country for Palestinians created through a compromise that sucks all around so that no one come out looking like they got ahead of the other guy. But you can’t replace a country so easily.

I ask again, if the US ever became openly hostile for Jews, and this suggests that the rest of the world had already become so, and Israel was the only bastion of safety, would you flee there?

Why do we need to deal with a far-fetched hypothetical? The United States had an Underground Railroad that was developed to assist blacks reaching a safe haven when they were the subjects of official persecution here. But ultimately, we still had to eliminate the source of the persecution. That was also the case with Nazi persecution.

It’s a much more urgent matter for all of us here to do the same thing with respect to the decades of persecution that Israelis have already inflicted on the Palestinians. Your comment is detached from that reality and is simply meant to side track our attention from the core problem.

>> … if the US ever became openly hostile for Jews, and this suggests that the rest of the world had already become so, and Israel was the only bastion of safety, would you flee there?

If the US ever became openly hostile for Jews, and Israel refused to accept you because you had never cared enough to live there before now, and Germany was the only bastion of safety, would you flee there?

” I ask again, if the US ever became openly hostile for Jews, and this suggests that the rest of the world had already become so, and Israel was the only bastion of safety”

In that situation, Israel is a very easy target. Incidentally, the Christians who believe in the rapture and all that other stuff written about in the “Left Behind” books do believe something like this will happen and quite soon too. Except that the Antichrist will pretend to be Israel’s savior, protecting them from the evil Russians or whoever the bad guy of the moment happens to be, and then he turns on them. Christians, of course (i.e., people who convert to Christianity after the rapture) are already persecuted in this scenario and so have to flee for safety in various ways. I think this scenario is roughly as plausible as yours.

One of the criticisms sometimes made about this mentality by fellow Christians is that you have people fantasizing about hypothetical human rights violations in some science fiction scenario when there are real life Christians and Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Bahais and gays and Jehovah’s Witnesses and so forth being persecuted right now. And Palestinians are suffering in the name of your refuge. So shouldn’t the real persecutions take precedence over the science fictional ones?

“But it doesn’t preclude my seeing Israel as a place that expresses my yearning for self-determination, and of safety if it should come to that. ”

Is apartheid part of your self determination ? If it’s good enough for Palestinians to be shafted what is so special about Jews ?
Can any people running a gulag like Gaza be safe in the long run? Might they get the Gaza treatment with the tables turned ?

German Jews today are not running around shreying about all of the existential threats to their existence, like the imbeciles in Israel. In fact, Zionists have undermined their own safe haven arguments here in the past by pointing out that the Nazis and their Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Allies had plans to exterminate the Jews of Palestine that were only thwarted through the intervention of the Anglo-American forces fighting in Northern Africa. If they hadn’t been protected by those Gentile powers, they would have suffered the very same fate as other German Jewish refugees who were rounded-up and captured after they emigrated from Germany to other destinations. The bottom line is that Israeli Jews were no smarter than the majority of German Jews, they just got a lucky break.

We all know that German Jewish Holocaust survivors are much better-off financially today than their Israeli brethren. Germany was the preferred destination for emigrants from the Former Soviet Union, until frustrated Zionists and Israeli authorities demanded that the Germans adopt legal restrictions that would make them less welcome or prevent them from being admitted at all. See
* Germany Is Moving To End Mass Immigration of Jews From Russia http://forward.com/articles/4029/germany-is-moving-to-end-mass-immigration-of-jews/

Small Jewish communal settlements, like Foreign Minister Lieberman’s, have barred many of those same unlucky Russian-Israeli families from buying housing or systematically discriminate against them in other ways.link to haaretz.com

German Jews today are not running around shreying about all of the existential threats to their existence, like the imbeciles in Israel.

Actually, that’s not true. Most German Jews are Zionists. They opt for self-segregation. They only have a few non-Jewish friends or none at all. They send their children to Jewish schools, not to the normal state schools that are for everyone. From the earliest years, the children are indoctrinated with Zionist propaganda. Already in their Jewish kindergartens, they are told about how the evil non-Jews have always persecuted “us Jews”. They are taught that their true home country is the Jewish state, not the German state. In a documentary from a few years ago, a German-Jewish teenager said, “I want to teach the Germans that Jews are normal people.” This statement shows the extent of indoctrination she was subjected to at her Jewish school in Germany. She thinks that it’s still 1940 and that the Aryans are still after her … although nobody ever did anything to her. Furthermore, most German-Jewish parents disapprove of “mixed marriages”. They want their children to marry other Jews. One German Jew said in an interview that Jews are only safe in Germany now because Israel exists. Another German Jew stated in a documentary that she views Israel as her safe haven if something terrible should happen. Also, many German Jews shout anti-Semitism as soon as you dare to disagree with them on anything. There was a Jewish family who got into an argument with their taxi driver. The Jewish mother immediately accused the taxi driver of anti-Semitism. The driver sighed and said, “Oh no, not this again.” So, you can see that most German Jews are just as paranoid as most Israeli Jews. It’s because they are Zionists.

Actually, that’s not true. Most German Jews are Zionists. They opt for self-segregation. They only have a few non-Jewish friends or none at all. They send their children to Jewish schools, not to the normal state schools that are for everyone. From the earliest years, the children are indoctrinated with Zionist propaganda.

Do you have any objective stats on this?
No. I don’t think that there are stats.
These are the impressions and statements from various documentaries and articles about German Jews.
Also, I had a look at some websites of Jewish schools in Germany. Most of them mention the importance of Israel. One website also said that Israeli holidays are celebrated at the school.
Evelyn Hecht-Galinski, an anti-Zionist German Jew, stated that she is very glad that there were no Jewish schools yet during her schooldays. That’s the only reason why she was sent to a general school for everyone and why she was spared the Zionist propaganda.
You also have to consider that the Central Council of Jews in Germany is very Zionist. You can conclude from this that most German Jews are Zionists, too.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Council_of_Jews_in_Germany
US Jew living in Germany: “For the most part Jewish communities in Germany are not very open to non-Jews.”http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/journalist-miriam-widman-reflects-on-her-life-in-germany-as-a-jew-a-920221.html

I simply meant that they aren’t constantly lobbying for preventative wars against Germany’s regional neighbors.

Yes, but most of them support Israel in the same way most Israeli Jews support Israel.
Actually, Israeli Jews who move to Germany are more open-minded than German Jews. That’s because Israeli Jews who move to Germany understand that the Holocaust is over.

OMG! This is incredible. Here’s a video of a street survey in Germany. Among other things, people were asked to estimate the number of Jews living in Germany (at 2:35).http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p1NUf3Fyi0
Here are the replies in chronological order:
– between 5 and 10 million
– There are probably more Jews than Christians in Germany. I think that half of Germany’s inhabitants are Jews.
– Very, very many.
– 1 million
– 1 million
– 3%
– between 5 and 6%
– 10%
– around 10 people per town
– none
The correct answer would be 120,000 of 80.3 million people = 0.15%.

‘Jews’ are really good at publicizing their own success whilst other groups do not do so (humility).

Our ex- British Prime Minister Tony Blair was forever prattling on and on mindlessly about the virtues of humility

Still think humility is a great virtue?

It’s generally a more appealing personal trait when people don’t boast endlessly about their talents.

However humility in it’s broader context is really overrated.

Tony Blair invoked the supposed virtue of humility over and over again because he wanted people in Britain to feel that all sorts of limits existed on what could be achieved and aspired to by individuals , society and the economy in terms of achieving real change.

Humility was his watchword to excuse the failures of his government and the fact that social mobility and living standards in Britain actually decreased during his time and that of the New Labour project in power.

Still think humility is a great virtue?

Also , why in particular do you find Jewish self confidence and pride at what they as individuals and communities have achieved , so threatening?

I think your argument is supporting a rather misanthropic negativity which undermines positive values of self confidence , ambition, and pride in achievement within individuals, their respective communities and society as a whole.

Are you referring to Germans overestimating the number of Jews in Germany?
I think that it’s because our media constantly talk about the revival of Jewish life in Germany. Also, people probably assume that there must be a lot of Jews in Germany because otherwise German politicians wouldn’t support “the Jewish state” that much.

The first question in the video was, “What do you associate with the word ‘Jew’?” All people said either “Holocaust” or “World War II”. Interestingly, nobody said “Israel” or “Palestine”.
One girl gave this strange answer: “Well, I know Anne Frank from TV. She was a Jew, too. And she was taken to the ‘KFZ’. Yes, she was a Jew. And, for example, Hitler somehow killed the Jews. I believe he killed all the Jews.” Note that she said “KFZ” (= automobile) instead of “KZ” (= concentration camp).
The next girl said: “Oh, we Germans are so bad. We killed them all.” (No idea if she was serious or not.)

“There are very few people left in Europe that do believe that Israel has any real interest in an agreement with the Palestinians. The islamic population in Europe is rising an will get political influence in proportion to its numbers. The permanent wielding of the holocaust club against each and every critic of Israeli human rights violations will lose its power. So inevitably the day will come when European governments – in despair about the eternal Israeli intransigence – will see no alternative than treating Israel as the apartheid regime it is They will revert to economic sanctions that then will really hurt. Israel cannot exist without permanent American support in weapons and enormous monetary subsidies. Some day the USA will come to the conclusion that it is no more in its interest to run the enormous cost both in loss of reputation, hostility in the islamic world and fiscal expenditure for absolutely no benefit. I am now 60 years old and I am quite sure that I will live up to the day when the state of Israel is closed down and its jewish population will spread around the globe.
Most of the problems I mentioned have been put forward by Uri Avnery from “Peace Now” much better than I could do.
It seems that Israel’s most dangerous enemy is its own government.”

The Eurozone, unlike the United States is not under the effective control of right wing Israeli supporters (i.e. voting blocs in New York, California and certain Fundamentalist Christian controlled states). Boycotting Israeli goods manufactured on land stolen from an oppressed people is different than hating Israel or Jews. Remember there are plenty within Israel who are disgusted by the disgraceful behavior of their own government, which is essentially controlled by right wing real estate developers.
Did the boycott of South African goods under the Apartheid government mean people did not like or care for the people of South Africa? There are reasonable people on the Palestinian side-the Likud coalition will be condemned by history for failing to reach out and demonstrate that when the other side acts reasonably, Israel can reciprocate, but no. I’m tired of opposition to hurtful and stupid policies by an Israeli government being equated to anti Israeli or anti Jewish sentiment. That’s absolute nonsense.
Identifying and boycotting goods manufactured in stolen places may prove an effective way for the world to stand up for the peaceful element of the Palestinian population, who deserve the right to self governance and respect.

@seafoid: And here one comment on Lustick article published in NYT. This comment represents most comments there that, I think, are against the article views and supporting Israel right to exist as Jewish state. I choose this comment since it is very similar to my view – the only solution is two states – Palestine state and Jewish state of Israel:

Marc, Colorado: Both sides need to accept certain conditions for peace. Israel needs to accept that: the West Bank is Palestinian and get out and that Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine. The Palestinians need to accept that Israel exists and always will and that there will be no return.
The world needs to accept that Israel has been a sovereign nation since well before Christianity or Islam existed – interrupted by 1800 years of assorted imperial occupation. Helen Thomas got her wish the Jews did go back to where they came from. Israel did not spring out of thin air in 1948 and is not an artificially contrived idea. During their exile, Israel was renamed Palestine by a Roman emperor and established as a farming colony. The Hebrews got there first and the Palestinians got there last.
The players may accept or refute the facts. The results are two sovereign states – there’s no telling how calming it would be for the Palestinians to recognize Israel’s right to exist and for Israel to abandon all settlements in the West Bank – or continued war.
Comparing the imperial creation of Palestine and the legitimate claims of the resulting population with British or French invasions is too different a situation to be comparable.

The world needs to accept that Israel has been a sovereign nation since well before Christianity or Islam existed – interrupted by 1800 years of assorted imperial occupation.

Besides being utterly irrelevant to the current conflict, it is also not true. 1800 years ago, Israel did not exist. Palestine was a province of the Roman Empire. In fact, you will have a hard time finding any period that Palestine was not part of a larger empire. The use of the name Palestine to describe the region between Syria and Egypt predates the Romans. There are references as far back as 500 BC.

>> The world needs to accept that Israel has been a sovereign nation since well before Christianity or Islam existed …

The oppressive, colonialist, expansionist and supremacist “Jewish State” of Israel has existed since 1948. Ancient history is exactly that: Ancient history. It is not an entitlement to terrorism, ethnic clenasing, colonalism and supremacism.

By the way, your English is absolutely impeccable today, “MahaneYehude1”. Looks like someone at HQ decided that the “simple potato seller” schtick wasn’t doing the trick.

Seriously this is representative of your own views? Sorry, you need to open a book about Palestinian history (it’s the name of the region – Israel is IN Palestine)

“Israel has been a sovereign nation since well before Christianity or Islam existed – interrupted by 1800 years of assorted imperial occupation”

No it hasn’t. 1800 years of being defunct means it’s defunct. No sane person would claim otherwise. The modern nation of Israel only has the name in common with the old polity. No Temple, no King, no High Priest, different religion, different language, different currency, different architecture, modern concept of nation-state. Not the same thing at all. And no direct line of development either.

“During their exile, Israel was renamed Palestine by a Roman emperor and established as a farming colony.”

References to Palestine date back beyond the Roman Empire (Herodotus mentions it) so that bit’s wrong. And exile? Exile implies against their will but the Romans never ethnically cleansed the Jews from Palestine. Didn’t happen. The Jews of the Diaspora are not descended from Jewish prisoners of war (think about it – seriously the chances of Roman SLAVES being able to raise their young as good Jews? Even assuming they lived long enough to have them?), they’re descended from economic migrants who left what was a backwater during the period for the greater opportunities first in the various Hellenic centres and then the Roman Empire.

“The Hebrews got there first and the Palestinians got there last.”

Well the genetics, the history and the archaeology all argue against that silly old claim. No evidence of large scale genocide, no evidence of large scale ethnic cleansing before the Nakba and Palestinians genetically cluster WITHIN Jewish populations. In other words – the Palestinians are the descendants of Jews (and a few others) who converted and acculturated to dominant norms over time.

As for the 2-State/1-State solution. It’s entirely in Israel’s hands. A 2-State solution that doesn’t actually create 2 states but one state and a series of Bantustans without even control of their own borders, airspace, security or (importantly) water is not a 2-State solution by any stretch of the imagination, it’s just a continuation of the Occupation by another name. And since it’s all Israel seems willing to offer it looks more and more as if 1-State is the way things will have to go.

@Light: I copied and pasted a comment published in NYT represents my view about the solution of the conflict (and represents most of the comments their which are against Lustick article view). Really, I didn’t bother about the “1800 years” but since you commented on this issue let me say that there is no question about the connection of my people to the land of Israel. Israel did exist from the days of the prophets and King Saul until the destruction of the first temple (586 BC) and later, from Cyrus the Great declaration and return of the people of Israel from Babylon to Israel in 536 BC until the final destruction of Judea by the Roman Empire that changed the name from Judea to Palestina province.
indeed, you correct, the name Palestine was not invented by the Roman. During the period of the prophets and the Kings of Israel, the Philistines (Pleshet) occupied the south coastal area of today Israel (South of today Ashdod and Ashkelon down to today Gaza strip). The Roman changed the name Judea to Palestina after the Philistines.
For me there is no question at all: Israel is my homeland and my home, as well as the homeland and home of my Palestinian neighbors.

@Ecru: Thanks. When I wrote that this comment represents my view I didn’t mean the Historic part of it (which I don’t need an American to teach me my History) but I mean that it represents my view about Lustick article , and supports (the comment) my view that only two states is a solution and one state solution is not practical solution in our neighborhood called the Middle East.

About the history part of your comment, please, see my reply to Light. The section you wrote about the diaspora reminds me S. Sand view which I don’t accept and many Historians criticize. Any way, I believe that Israel, or Palestine if you prefer, is the common homeland of both people. We both have no other home and we both will share the home for the future of our next generations.

I already wrote my view against one state solution and going to write about it more comprehensive in other thread. Hope you read and comment.

Israel did exist from the days of the prophets and King Saul until the destruction of the first temple (586 BC) and later,

Not continuously and not part of the same commonwealth. In total, Jews only controlled the territory for 400 years at the most.

During the period of the prophets and the Kings of Israel, the Philistines (Pleshet) occupied the south coastal area of today Israel (South of today Ashdod and Ashkelon down to today Gaza strip). The Roman changed the name Judea to Palestina after the Philistines.

False. A century after Herodotus, Aristotle affirms the commonality of the term when, in hisMeteorology, he describes the Dead Sea as “a lake in Palestine”.

For me there is no question at all: Israel is my homeland and my home, as well as the homeland and home of my Palestinian neighbors.

You could believe in the Easter Bunny, but so what? Every time your argument hits the wall of reality, you bore us with takes if your own narcicism.

@Light: I am sorry that our history is a mythology for you. I didn’t wrote things that you can argue as mythology such as “God promised…” etc. I told in a very short the history of ancient Israel and Judea. You can argue about the facts, tell me “you wrong…I think that…” but not that I wrote mythology. Even if in such real proofs, people “rooted” mythological stories, it doesn’t matter and doesn’t changes the historic facts. The fact that for centuries Jews dream on Zion and land of Israel is enough for me and is a proof for me for the connection of my people to this land.

There is a holy mosque in Jerusalem called Al-Aqsa (the farthest). Muslims believe that it is a place where Mohammad the prophet arrived there from Mecca in his night journey. Well, I don’t care and won’t check if this story is truth or just “mythology”. For me, the fact that millions of Muslims believe that it is holy place is enough, I respect it and I support that in any future agreement the mosque should be Palestinian and only Palestinian (although, I know Jews, including me, claim it is the Temple mount, I don’t care if it will be under P control and they save it as holy place for all).

The name and the country of Palestine existed from 1291 BC, according to maps that show it. Ancient maps are in major US collections and predate your efforts to rewrite history. Do your homework. This has been discussed in the archives innumerable times.http://www.emersonkent.com/map_archive/ancient_palestine.htm

With respect if you honestly believe the myth about the Forced Diaspora then you DO need somebody to teach you your own people’s history. And I’m not American btw, I’m Irish.

I’m also afraid that your comment is more than a tad bigoted if you truly think Jews can only learn about Jewish history from other Jews. It’ll certainly come as a surprise to all those Syro-Palestinian archaeologists who just dug up a village in Galilee. As far as I’m aware Reading isn’t in Israel. Unless there’s a settlement there of course.

Getting back to the Forced Diaspora – it IS a myth. After the Bar Kokhba revolt Romans did NOT depopulate Judaea. They couldn’t. They could have committed genocide (see if you can find a Dacian) but clearing out provinces was beyond their logistic capabilities. How would they transport that many people? Didn’t have trains. Ships? They didn’t have enough, even if they’d called in every ship in the Empire. And there’s also no evidence of the massive trade disruption this would cause. The Empire lived on trade, people would notice. They DID clear the area around Jerusalem, but there’s a corresponding rise in the population of neighbouring areas so it was a purely local movement. Then of course the Roman’s weren’t morons – emptying the province bordering a rival empire? That’d be just begging for trouble. It was also their land link to the bread basket of Egypt. No. Never happened.

Yes some slaves were taken during the war but do you know what happened to Roman prisoners of war when they became slaves? Most men ended up in heavy industry, gladiator schools or mines. Very short life expectancy pretty much no matter what. What women were taken (and there are no numbers) were auctioned off separately so again, there’s this whole problem of how could someone under complete Roman power raise children (if there even were any) in a Jewish faith. People who the Roman in question would have known were taken in a war partly caused by that faith.

There were other Jews in the Empire however, the economic “diaspora” that began when Palestine became part of the Hellenic world with notable centres of Jewish life such as Alexandria and Babylon pre-dating the Roman Empire.

Sorry but the whole “the Romans forced us from our homes” is a nice “tragi-heroic” myth but it’s still just that. And whether you like it or not, the view I’ve just presented is the one that’s the historical consensus.

As for that matter is the view that Saul hardly ruled a “kingdom” worthy of the name but rather that he and David after him were little more than local tribal chieftains in a setting that included multiple peoples. When looking at things that far in the past you really have to let go of your modern concept of unified nation states, they don’t apply.

@MRW: Thanks for your recommendation, but I already did my homework. Let’s see:

You wrote:
“The name and the country of Palestine existed from 1291 BC, according to maps that show it. Ancient maps are in major US collections and predate your efforts to rewrite history”.

And I wrote in my original comment to Light:
“indeed, you correct, the name Palestine was not invented by the Roman. During the period of the prophets and the Kings of Israel, the Philistines (Pleshet) occupied the south coastal area of today Israel (South of today Ashdod and Ashkelon down to today Gaza strip). The Roman changed the name Judea to Palestina after the Philistines”

So you wrote that the name Palestine existed from 1291 BC (I agree) and I wrote that during the period of prophets and Kings of Israel, the south coast was belong to the Philistines and was called Pleshet (in Hebrew) or Palestine if you prefer, no matter. What is the different between our claims?

@Ecru: After reading your comment carefully, I started to write a reply twice, but deleted all and start again since after several sentences (…we were here…Jerusalem is…) I saw that my comment will be no more that “old tired Hasbara” as people here like to say.

Ecru, please, let me give you the same example that I wrote earlier. Muslims believe that, during his night journey, the prophet Mohammad arrived from Mecca to Jerusalem riding on his winged-horse Al-Buraq. They built the Al-Aqsa mosque in the same place he arrived. The mosque is considered the third holy place in Islam and Jerusalem as Holy city (Al-Quds – The Holy). I will never, never!!, ask a Muslim whether he believes the story. For him it is a truth and I respect it. Each people in our planet has stories which are combinations of true historic facts and beliefs, so do the Jewish people. For centuries Jews believe that Israel is their homeland which they left. They expressed their fillings in daily prayers, in their ancient festivals, in songs and Piyutim (don’t know the word in English), in daily blessings, traditional costumes (breaking glass in wedding) and more. Several of them came to this land to visit and in some cases to be buried. So, all the attempts to cut the connection between us and the land of Israel will not succeed as well as the attempts of several right-wings Jews to cut the connection of the Palestinians from Palestine will never succeed (and it is disgust me). It is very hard to suppress hundreds or thousands years of beliefs even not with historic facts (which soon debunked by others, and the circle never ends). As I respect the Muslims beliefs, tradition and history, I ask you to respect our, whatever the books you read say.

BTW, ecru, I must confess: I didn’t know you Irish but I guessed you are not American since I didn’t understand your comment to me with Mother Theresa. You used to much idioms and strange English (for non-English speaker) that I lost you. :-)

@Shmuel: OK, I take your word. Indeed, Erev Hagim the shuk is very busy. Several years ago, I couldn’t take a brief. Now, with age, more available time so I can write in MW. Good or bad? depends who you ask. :-)

Greetings Mahane Jahude,
….. the world must accept that Israel ahs been a sovreign Nation…….
Wha’?
ISRAEL was, but a Kingdom not a Nation.
SOVREINITY. The Canaanites were semi sovreign under the Egyptians & Hittites. The contiguous territory of Canaan was always under rule of
foreign powers. The Canaanites set up shop, ca. 4K BC.
HEBREWS: The 12 tribes & the Falesteeni arrived ca. 1200BC, both being
Semites speaking Afro/Asian: Arabic, Hebrew & Aramaic tongues.
Arriving together & being both Semite, being only identified by their tribal names, it is possible that they were, but basically one People!!!
Pssst, We remember all the Grecian Tribes, Macedonia won out.
We remember all the Turkic Tribes, the Ottomann won out.
We remember all the Italic Tribes, the Romans won out.
We remember all the Germanic Tribes, None of them won out until 1870.
We remember all the ancient Semite tribes, 10 disappeared, 2 disolved in the Babylonian ‘slammers’.
Israel today is a sovreign Nation since 48, recognized by all at the 67 borders. End of banana.
Mahane, today you speak as a conquerer. Tomorrow?
ziusudra
PS Palistine was an ancient lake outside of Jureusalem.
Cannan later Peleset (Egyptian) later Palistine (english for Arabic
Falesteena) was already named, like Schalim(Jerusalem) under the Canaanites eons before the Tribes arrived.

@mahane Jehude,
…. King Cyrus & the return of the People of Israel to Jerusalem……
5K returned under the tutelege of Rabbi Scribe Ezra in 456BC.
They were encarerated 50 yrs in Babylonia, remained 80yrs longer
and a few returned. Most stayed & became known as the Mizrahi
ME people of Judaism, arabic. Some others moved on to Morocco
& became known as the Magreb.
Palestine. Again the Romans didn’t change the Name.
Palistina was known as Peleset under the Egyptians in 1150BC.
The Name of a lake in the Canaanite times.
Judea was a town, later a southern Kingdom 931BC/586BC after the ‘schism’ of the northernKingdom of Israel 1009BC 931BC folding
into obilivion after 722BC by the Assyrians. The first Kingdom was of Hebron under King Saul 1029BC.
….. The return of the People from Babylonia to Israel in 536BC…..
Pssst, Mahane, you are composing history.
They were freed in 536BC. They remained ca 80 yrs. King Cyrus would allow them to return f they could prove in writing that they would live by a ‘code of ethics’. They formed their oral Talmud & written Tanakr from
the Facts of the Egyptians, Babylonian histories & protagonists such as
Noah, Abraham & their Anthropo Theism & Deity EL by Judaising all of it.
They returned to Jerusalem in 456BC. They lived as a non tribal minority.
They dropped Hebrew in 200BC for Aramaic.
ziusudra
PS Phoenicians came from Carthage (Tunesia) & Lebanon (are Phoenicians till today).
Philistines as you can see is a Greek prefix, so with their pottery.
Canaanites were the first to wander in & settle Canaan/Palestina
… Israel is my Homeland…..
How big is your Homeland?
21.0K Sq Km of contiguous Falesteena of today.
5.9 mill. Israelis inhabit only 9.0 K Sq Km Today.
408K are squatting in Tel Aviv with only 52 Sq Km!
PPS Drop the Talmud & get back to history books.

“For me there is no question at all: Israel is my homeland and my home, as well as the homeland and home of my Palestinian neighbors.” M1

So after all your protestations , you are in favour of a One State Solution.

What a turnaround.Why it even surpasses your remarkable rags to riches success in learning English.

I hope now you will spend your valuable time fighting against the following racist laws in your beautiful homeland.

““Facts on Israel’s systemic discrimination against non-Jewish inhabitants.
Susan abulhawa
• Section 5 in the Law of Political Parties and section 7A of the Basic Law: Stipulates that any party platform that calls for full and complete equality between Jews and non-Jews, can be disqualified from any political post. The law demands that Palestinian Arab citizens may not challenge the state’s Zionist identity.
• Law of Return: “Every Jew has the right to become a citizen no matter where they come from” while the indigenous non-Jewish inhabitants who were expelled in 1948 are expressly barred from returning to their homes
• Nakba Law: Penalizes any institution that commemorates or publicly mourns the expulsion of the native Palestinian population
• Anti-boycott law: Provides anyone calling for the boycott of Israel, or its illegal settlements, can be sued by the boycott’s targets without having to prove that they sustained damage. The court will then decide how much compensation is to be paid.
• Admission Committees Law formally allows neighborhood screening committees to prevent non-Jewish citizens from living in Jewish communities that control 81 percent of the territory in Israel. In March 2011 Israel passed a law to allow residents of Jewish towns to refuse non Jews from living in their communities.
• Amendment to the Citizenship Law: Stipulates that an Israeli citizen who marries a Palestinian cannot live as a couple in Israel with his or her spouse. A Palestinian spouse can neither gain citizenship nor residency.
• 93% of the land, the vast majority of which was confiscated from Palestinian owners after 1948, can only be owned by Jewish agencies for the benefit of Jews only. One of these agencies is the Jewish National Fund, which, in its charter forbids sale or lease to non-Jews.
• Specified Goods Tax and Luxury Tax Law [art 26, Laws of the State of Israel, vol. 6, p. 150 (1952)] Authorizes lower import taxes for Jewish citizens of Israel compared with non-Jewish citizens of Israel.
• National Planning and Building Law (1965) Through various zoning laws freezes the growth of existing Arab villages while providing for the expansion Jewish settlements and creation of new ones. The law also re-classifies a large portion of established Arab villages as “unrecognized” and therefore nonexistent, allowing the state to cut off water and electricity as well as to simply appropriate that property.
• Appropriations are carried out under The Requisitions Law which allows a “competent authority” to requisition the land – called “land requisition order” – so that only he may “use and exploit the land” as he sees fit. This applies to “home requisition orders” as well, whereby another “competent authority” who can “order the occupier of a house to surrender the house to the control of a person specified in the order, for residential purposes or for any other use, as may be prescribed in the order. “
• In the education sector within Israel, as an example, the state spends $192 per year per non-Jewish student compared to $1,100 per Jewish student.
• There is a planned Mosque Law that will prohibit the broadcasting of the Muslim call to prayer, which has been sounding over that land since the beginning of Islam.
• Non-Jews living in the West Bank are denied access to the holy places of Jerusalem, which are only a few kilometers away from them.
• ALSO, for the first time in the history of Islam and the history of Christianity, Palestinian Muslims and Christians in the West Bank and Gaza are denied access to their holy Places of Jerusalem, even on the high holy days of Eid, Christmas, and Easter Sunday.
• Since Israel took the West Bank, the Christian population has declined from 20,000 in 1967 to less than 7500 today.
• Military Order 1229: authorizes Israel to hold Palestinians in administrative detention for up to six months without charge or trial. Six-month detentions can be renewed indefinitely, without charge or trial.
• Military Order 329 and 1650 effectively prevents Palestinians from being anywhere in the West Bank without a specific permit to be there, making it a criminal offense to go from one Palestinian town to another.
• Military Oder #92 and #158: gives the Israeli military control of all water resources in the West Bank, which belongs to Palestinians.
• Israel then allows the Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources, while unlawful Israeli settlements there receive virtually unlimited supplies creating a reality of green lawns and swimming pools for Jewish settlers and a parched life for Palestinians, whose access to water, according to the World Health Organization does not meet the minimum requirements for basic human water needs.
• Furthermore, that fraction of confiscated Palestinian water is sold to Palestinians at 300% more than what it costs Jewish settlers in the same area. ($1.20/cubic meter vs $.40/cubic meter).
• Military Orders #811 and #847: Allows Jews to purchase land from unwilling Palestinian sellers by using “power of attorney”.
• Military Order #25: forbids public inspection of land transactions.
• Militar Order #998: requires Palestinians to get Israeli military permission to make a withdrawal from their bank account.
• Military Order #128: gives the Israeli military the right to take over any Palestinian business which is not open during regular business hours.
• Military Order #138 & #134: forbids Palestinians from operating tractors or other heavy farm machinery on their land.
• Military Order #93: gives all Palestinian insurance businesses to the Israeli Insurance Syndicate.
• Military Order # 1015: requires Palestinians to get Israeli military permission to plant and grow fruit trees. This permit expires every year.
• Through various military orders, according to the WHO, Israel has uprooted 2.5 million trees belonging to Palestinians, and which often represent their only means of sustenance.

• (UNICEF): “Conditions have rarely been worse for Palestinian children.” One in 10 Palestinian children now suffer from stunted growth due to compromised health, poor diet and nutrition and 50% of Palestinian children are anemic, and 75% of those under 5 suffer from vitamin A deficiency.
• Palestinian children are routinely imprisoned for months and years for throwing stones at Israeli jeeps, tanks, and soldiers. Many of them, as young as 12 years old, are tortured and held in solitary confinement.
• Meanwhile, for bludgeoning a 10 year old Palestinian boy (Hilmi Shusha) to death with the butt of his rifle, an Israeli settler received community service and a fine.
• A Palestinian man was convicted of rape and sentenced to 1.5 years in prison for having consensual sex with a Jewish woman, because he did not disabuse her of her assumption that he was Jewish.

“BTW, ecru, I must confess: I didn’t know you Irish but I guessed you are not American since I didn’t understand your comment to me with Mother Theresa. You used to much idioms and strange English (for non-English speaker) that I lost you. :-) ” M1

Ecru speaks perfect English.We can thank our former oppressors for forcing our ancestors to stop speaking Irish under threat of death and learn to speak english. Nothing strange about it. Fact is, it is better English then the Majority of English people speak.

>> For centuries Jews believe that Israel is their homeland which they left.

So what?
1. If they were not born there, it wasn’t their homeland.
2. Belief is not an entitlement:
– to commit terrorism and ethnic cleansing;
– to create an oppressive, colonialist, expansionist and supremacist state; or
– to engage in aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction, torture and murder.

The fact that for centuries Jews dream on Zion and land of Israel is enough for me and is a proof for me for the connection of my people to this land.

That’s the point. There was no real personal connection in the overwhelming majority of cases. It’s merely a fantasy and a self-delusion. No sane intellect would have ever proposed founding a modern nation-state on such flimsy bases, much less expect respect from others when armed force is still being routinely used decades later to subjugate many of the lawful inhabitants and those with more legitimate connections to the land.

@ziusudra: I wrote enough on this issue to light and ecru and have nothing to add. I wonder why you do a lot of efforts to prove me that there is no connection between my people and the land of Israel? Maybe because…no…no…they are innocent efforts because you always stick to the truth and always bring real facts.

Thanks for your recommendation to me to drop the Talmud. Although I am a secular man, I will find Talmud books and drop them (or better burn them).

That’s it – I have done enough in this thread and have nothing new to add. Don’t bother yourself Mr. ziusudra to bring more facts. It is a waste of time.

my1, I wonder why you do a lot of efforts to prove me that there is no connection between my people and the land of Israel?

strawman, ziusudra didn’t say there was no connection. as an aside it is very clear there is a huge hasbara push to paint the holyland, historically and otherwise, as primarily a jewish homeland, which obviously it is not since the vast majority of people who’ve lived there through the centuries were not jewish. it take a certain amount of brainwashing to convince not just jews, but everyone, that the judaization of the land is ok, which is why zionists have invested so much time money and effort in hasbara. but ethnic cleansing is never ok.

Greetings Shmuel,
…. shuk…….
What Kind of animal is that?
Is it related to shmuck?
sorry about that.
ziusudra
PS Do you People still call German Jews Ashkenazi, if so what do you call Polish or Russian Jews? If Jews are still getting These terminologies wrong, what do you expect us to understand?
Ashkenaz was a biblical figure, a Grandson of Noah, which the Sephardi named their ‘schools of learning’ in the 10th C.
take care,
ziusudra
PS Russ is viking for one who rows, a rower!
Are Jews from Russia, Ashkenaz, Grandson of Noah Rowers?
oy, weh ! Was haben wir mit Ethymologie gemacht?
Managg’ e miseria, che abbiamo fatto con Etymologia?

Yes, Ashkenaz is the name of a biblical figure, but Jews over the ages have liked to attach biblical names to various peoples and lands, giving us Sefarad (Spain), Tzarfat (France), Togarmah (Turkey). Yavan (Greece), Elishah (Italy), etc.

Ashkenaz was used roughly to refer to the Rheinlands, later extended to German lands, peoples and language, and eventually to Eastern European Jews (speakers of “Teitsh”, heirs to the religious traditions of the great centres of Jewish scholarship in the Rheinlands) as well. Ashkenaz also refers to a specific liturgical rite (based on the Italian rite), discarded by some Eastern European Ashkenazim in favour of a more kabbalistic rite.

In short, it is perfectly correct to refer to the Jews of northern Europe (both west and east) as Ashkenazim.

MahaneYehude1,
History is something that can be verified. What you believe is not history. It is folklore, mythology or religion. Your history of ancient Israel and Judea is a recanting of the Bible. It is not backed up by archeological evidence.

There is not doubt that Judaism as a religion evolved in the middle east but so did Christianity and Islam. Yes, there were Jews living in what is now Israel 2000 years ago. That is well documented. However, it is not at all certain that modern Jews are related to those people. Judaism like all other religions converted people. Jews from Russia, Poland or Morocco are most likely no more related to ancient Judeans than a Muslim from Indonesia is related to a Saudi.

@Annie: Look, I chose one comment from NYT that support my view about two states solution (after seafoid copied two comments from ME&NA). The NYT’s commenter wrote small paragraph about history of Israel. I didn’t intend to speak about it, but soon all the discussion turned to this issue. Although not the issue, I tried to answer commenters witha lot of patience and in a comprehensive way. I thought to reply to ziusudra in the same way until I reached his last sentence: “PPS Drop the Talmud & get back to history books”. Well, to tell you the truth, after a shock of several seconds, I had to convince my self that there is no Anti-Semitism in this sentence. Until now I am asking why a comment with such sentence saw the “light of the day” as you like to say. Is someone here would accept same sentence but with the word “Quraan” or “The New Testament” instead of the word “Talmud”? It seems to me that many people are very sensitive but only in one direction – i hope I wrong.

I don’t think the Zionist movement needs to do Judaization of the land. Any Jewish prayer book published before the establishment of the Zionist movement could do it in better way.

@Light: You already said that my history about the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea, is a mythology and I already replied to you that those Kingdoms existed. So what is your point? assuming you are 100% right and I am 100% wrong, so now, what is your conclusion? could you say it directly? Tx.

I’m making allowances that English isn’t your first language but you really need to read what people write more carefully.

I noted that there were TWO Diasporas.
1) An economic Diaspora that spread Jews throughout what was to be the Roman Empire that was REAL
2) A “Forced Diaspora” that is entirely MYTHICAL.

You somehow managed to interpret this as an attempt to deny modern Jews are descended, in part (and genetics increasingly is showing it is only in part), from Palestinian populations. How you did that eludes me considering I mentioned the Economic Diaspora TWICE.

However all that is by-the by. The fact is that Jewish belief and prayers about what was in effect a metaphorical city not the real one, in no way gives them the right to ethnically cleanse the area of people who had been living there for millennia. And these were only ideas about a city, not the real one about which the vast majority of the worlds Jewish population had no idea for thousands of years. Or would you say the English have a right to Jerusalem thanks to one of their national anthems that they’ve been singing for a couple of centuries?

One of the reasons the “Forced Diaspora” myth has been pushed so hard, contrary to ALL evidence that shows it as a fraud, is in an attempt to legitimise the crimes of Zionism. That since Jews never wanted to leave, everyone else living there is an usurper or an invader. If the truth is modern Jews are descended (again – if only in part) from those who willingly, even eagerly left Palestine during Antiquity then the whole idea of later people’s being “squatters” in the Jews’ rightful place, as Zionists often argue, is rendered utterly void. This is why the truth about the mythical Forced Diaspora must be challenged every time it’s raised. Not to mention the duty I personally have to the study of history (in case you never clicked on my name to see my background I used to be an archaeologist).

Jews can believe what they like but since Zionism so often uses stories from Jewish history and religion to back its claims and justify its actions, it is Zionists who have opened to the door to the legitimate questioning of these same tales. And if ever Palestinian Muslims try and use the story of Mohammed’s visit to Jerusalem to ethnically cleanse Jews from the area I’ll also be questioning that myth.

As for my writing style – it’s not going to change. Look at it as a way to stretch your English horizons away from that bastardised form the Americans use (and to you Americans – just teasing :) )

Small yet full of errors and mythology. If the guy can’t get his basic history right, what credibility should the rest of his argument have?

I tried to answer commenters witha lot of patience and in a comprehensive way.

Actually it’s everyone here who has been patient with you. You have demonstrated the usual traits of magical thinking that Zionists exhibit, conflating what prior believe with historical fact.

Evidently it never occurred to you they are not the same. If someone tried to declare it was an undisputed truth that Mohammed rose to heaven on a chariot, they would get the same treatment.

Any Jewish prayer book published before the establishment of the Zionist movement could do it in better way.

Not really, seeing – as has been explained to you – the Jerusalem that appears in those prayers is not the physical Jerusalem. If that were true, all the Jews living in Jerusalem would stop reciting it because the prayer would be redundant.

It just amazes me why it always happen to me, a man who enter MW to promote peace and reconciliation.

Apartheid and ethnocentric arguments are impediments to peace and reconciliation.

@Ecru:
Let’s start from the end: I know your English and style of writing are perfect and I am responsible for all misunderstanding. Sometimes, it is not only the language. I think the culture differences play a major role for this misunderstanding. In addition, don’t forget that you write to me one comment, but I receive several comments for each issue and sometimes the “thread atmosphere” influences my replies. Now, I learn my lesson and try to neutralize this influence by ignoring those comments.

I very appreciate your honesty by claiming that “if ever Palestinian Muslims try and use the story of Mohammed’s visit to Jerusalem to ethnically cleanse Jews from the area I’ll also be questioning that myth”. Actually, in each “Al-Quds day”, millions of Muslims demonstrate and raise banners with Al-Aqsa mosque photo and Arabic or Pharsi slogans. Unfortunately, the slogans don’t say “We support solution with Israel”. No, the slogans are very aggressive and let’s say they are not relaxing music to the Israelis. I hope people won’t say that the slogans mean to metaphoric Jerusalem and actually they mean Mendelssohnian Prussia.

And to the main point in your comment:
I understand that you have no problem with mythologies and mythic stories, only in case they are manipulated to do crimes. To proceed with the discussion, let’s assume that you right and several parts of our history are not real but mythology. Let’s continue and assume you right and the Zionists used these mythic stories to promote their interests in the area. Well, Sir, the only myth is not the myths about Kingdoms or Winged-horses, No!! The main myth is that the Zionists used these stories to commit crimes – This is the main myth in the central of the propaganda against us, Ecru!. This is the main story of the mythology that people invented in order to fight the Zionist movement and the state of Israel. If the Zionists indeed used mythical stories, according to you, they only used them to save my people, to build a shelter to any Jew in the world experience persecutions, killing and humiliation, not metaphoric killing, real killing in gas chambers, in pogroms in Baghdad, real humiliation like burning Talmud books in the streets of Berlin and Munich. The Zionist built and still building a nation on their homeland not in order to commit crimes against any nation, but to be independent nation like all nations.

Now, to the “crimes” you mentioned: there are no doubt that the Palestinian people experienced the terrible Nakba, in which hundred of thousand became refugees and still are. I wrote about it in several of my comments, explained several times that it was a consequence of the terrible conflict we have here. I already wrote that Israel, although a victim of wars, must participate in fair solution to this main obstacle of peace. I, as Meretz man and as one that know that this land is also the homeland of the Palestinians, support a solution in which an independent Palestine will be declared, full withdraw of Israel, and the settlement houses will be given to the refugees. I hope both sides leaders will open their eyes and march toward peace and reconciliation, to the benefit of both peoples on this land.

“PPS Drop the Talmud & get back to history books”. Well, to tell you the truth, after a shock of several seconds, I had to convince my self that there is no Anti-Semitism in this sentence. Until now I am asking why a comment with such sentence saw the “light of the day” as you like to say. Is someone here would accept same sentence but with the word “Quraan” or “The New Testament” instead of the word “Talmud”?

The majority of the members of the very first 1st Israeli Knesset agreed and said as much when they rejected out of hand the outlandish idea of governing modern Jewish society according to the superstitions contained in the 16th century codification contained in the Shulchan Aruch.

Actually, in each “Al-Quds day”, millions of Muslims demonstrate and raise banners with Al-Aqsa mosque photo and Arabic or Pharsi slogans. Unfortunately, the slogans don’t say “We support solution with Israel”. No, the slogans are very aggressive and let’s say they are not relaxing music to the Israelis.

They can carry any banner they like, so long as they are not stealing Israeli land and driving Israelis off their own land under this pretext.

Every year, during Jerusalem Day, thousands of white shirts chant “death to Arabs”. How does that music appeal to you?

The main myth is that the Zionists used these stories to commit crimes – This is the main myth in the central of the propaganda against us, Ecru!

That’s no myth, that’s a fact. On the day the Jews accepted the partition plan, Ben Gurioin said that no Jew had the right to give up claims to the land promised to the Jews by God.

The Zionist built and still building a nation on their homeland not in order to commit crimes against any nation, but to be independent nation like all nations.

That is the most absurd argument you could make. It’s like a rapist saying he didn’t want to assault the victim, he just wanted to have sex and an orgasm.

@RoHa: Why? Did I used a Talmud as an history book? Did I mention it in my comments (before it was mentioned by others)? Let’s say that you right and all are fiction, so what? Although I am a secular man and don’t cite from these books to support my claims, I do respect millions of millions of people in our world that see them as holy books. For thousands years they had and still have an important role in the history of humanity mainly as a source for laws and order in human communities – Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindustanis and others.

In order to attack the Zionist movement, the state of Israel and the Jewish people and support their claims, several people forget their values and allow theme self to smash spiritual values of other groups by using cruel language, analyse their history in details ignoring the whole context, rewrite history and describe it in way convenient to them to justify their goal.

So, my dear RoHa, no body ask you use this books, only respect other peoples mythology, religion, beliefs and history, as well as you respect several communities belief that Wandjina created your country.

@Shingo: I get tired from your endless analogies written as real facts without questioning them. I also tired to reply to each “fact” and explain each of them. So, now it is your turn to defend your claims:

You compare hundreds of demonstrations organized by the government In Al-Quds day take place in cities like Tehran and Beirut, in which ten of thousands calling to destruction of Israel and put an end to the Zionists by saying “Al-Maut La-Israyil!! Al-Maut La-Amrika”, to a group of 5-6 Jewish right-winged extremists in “Jerusalem Day” with T-shirt calling “Death to Arabs (according to you*)” and spend several days under arrest? OK, now I am waiting to see how many photos from “Jerusalem Day” do you have to support your analogy. For each photo you find, I am not sure, I will send you one hundred photos from hundred different demonstrations of Al-Quds day. Remember, Shirts or banners with the slogan “Death to Arabs!!” from “Jerusalem Day”. Only because I like you I will make your life easy and write it in Hebrew, you can use the term in Google so it allow you expand your search. please: Mavet Laaravim Yom Yerushalaim” מוות לערבים יום ירושלים

Here a report in YNET about Jewish right-winged extremists called “Death to Arabs” and attacked 24 years old Palestinian:http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4034889,00.html
Even those of you that can’t read Hebrew, can understand from the photos how the Israeli society treat them. You can find more reports about how the police treats those morons attacking Arabs, writing anti-Arab slogans on walls and cars etc.

I get tired from your endless analogies written as real facts without questioning them. I also tired to reply to each “fact” and explain each of them. So, now it is your turn to defend your claims:

Imagine how tired we get of you making bold statements (while refusing to back them up with links), then when proven wrong, watching you retreat into the hole you crawled out of and reframing your argument that it’s not a fact, just your what you chose to believe?

You compare hundreds of demonstrations organized by the government In Al-Quds day take place in cities like Tehran and Beirut, in which ten of thousands calling to destruction of Israel and put an end to the Zionists by saying “Al-Maut La-Israyil!! Al-Maut La-Amrika”, to a group of 5-6 Jewish right-winged extremists in “Jerusalem Day”

But they are not just 56 right wing extremists, they are hundreds, not to mention the thousands of soccer fans, not to mention Netenyahu himself, who was quoted stating “death to Arabs”, no to mention the elected Avigdor Lieberman and Israel’s spiritual leaders like Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

None of the white shirts were arrested, contrary to your claims.

For each photo you find, I am not sure, I will send you one hundred photos from hundred different demonstrations of Al-Quds day.

No you won’t. You don’t do links remember?

Even those of you that can’t read Hebrew, can understand from the photos how the Israeli society treat them.

The photos who two men, not 56.

You can find more reports about how the police treats those morons attacking Arabs, writing anti-Arab slogans on walls and cars etc.

Wrong. See the other link with the story about settlers attacking a Palestinian child and Israeli police doing nothing on the grounds it was the Sabbath.

@RoHa: Why? Did I used a Talmud as an history book? Did I mention it in my comments (before it was mentioned by others)?

Correction: The members of the Zionist political movement had no demonstrable physical or historical connection whatever to the land of Palestine. They nonetheless employed their use of the Talmud and Torah in private annual religious rituals as the nexus of a supposed “connection” and as an excuse to colonize the country and displace the majority of its inhabitants. That’s been going on for at least 130 years and you joined our conversation about that situation.

The Zionist jackasses on the hilltops of Palestine and in the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem claim that God commanded them to conqueror the land and we don’t choose to believe that. They use the myths and superstitions contained in the Talmud and Torah to justify their criminal behavior. Many of the original authors obviously thought that the overwhelming majority of Jews were habitual covenant breakers, liars, adulterers, thieves, and backsliding SOBs who were justifiably cut-off from the people and tossed out of the land. Should we remind you about those parts and would you agree to respect our spiritual take on them if we did?

You compare hundreds of demonstrations organized by the government In Al-Quds day take place in cities like Tehran and Beirut, in which ten of thousands calling to destruction of Israel and put an end to the Zionists by saying “Al-Maut La-Israyil!! Al-Maut La-Amrika”, to a group of 5-6 Jewish right-winged extremists in “Jerusalem Day” with T-shirt calling “Death to Arabs (according to you*)”

Honestly it’s hard to know where to begin with your post. There’s just so much wrong with it.

in each “Al-Quds day”, millions of Muslims demonstrate and raise banners with Al-Aqsa mosque photo and Arabic or Pharsi slogans. Unfortunately, the slogans don’t say “We support solution with Israel”. No, the slogans are very aggressive

I can’t believe you’re actually comparing a bunch of placards to the VERY REAL discrimination and oppression suffered by Palestinians and the suffering they’ve gone through thanks to the crimes against humanity visited upon them by Zionism and Zionists.

OF COURSE THEY’RE BLOODY ANGRY THEY’VE HAD THEIR LANDS, THEIR HOMES, THEIR PROPERTIES, THEIR HOPES AND THEIR VERY LIVES STOLEN FROM THEM BY ZIONISTS!!!
You expect them to just sit down, sing “Kumba-ya” and smile as Israelis put the boots in again and again and again?

As for them talking, like Jews did, of a metaphoric city – no they aren’t. BECAUSE THEY ACTUALLY LIVE THERE AND HAVE DONE SO FOR MILLENNIA!

“The main myth is that the Zionists used these stories to commit crimes”

From the first post I responded to, the one where YOU quoted a letter that you said expressed your views remember.

“Israel has been a sovereign nation since well before Christianity or Islam existed”

An claim of “primacy” based on a complete and utter lie. The ancient kingdom of Israel is not the same as the modern state that has appropriated its name.

“…interrupted by 1800 years of assorted imperial occupation.

A (FALSE) claim that all later rulers of the area were “occupiers” of said kingdom. The kingdom in question was DEAD. See Monty Python’s Parrot Sketch if you need more explanation.

“the Jews did go back to where they came from”

A claim that all Jews around the world irrespective of 1800 years of history are actually from Palestine. Just so you know, 1800 years is between 90 and 100 generations. No other group on the face of the planet would make such a ridiculous claim. It’s as if the people of Hull in England decided to move, en masse, to Paris and kick out the native French because the people of that part of the UK are descended from the Parisi whereas the French are named for a Germanic people. Preposterous.

“Hebrews got there first and the Palestinians got there last.”

An explicit claim of Jewish primacy in the land to justify Israel’s existence and via that the crimes that Israel committed against the native peoples from before its founding to today.

Or if you want more examples perhaps you’d like to look at the trove of books and articles that use the arguments I outlined as justification for Israel’s behaviour? That “Time Immemorial” rubbish for example. Or just take a look at the comments from Zionists on YNet or HuffPo, you’ll see it all repeated ad-nauseam.

“No!! The main myth is that the Zionists used these stories to commit crimes

Well I’ve just demonstrated that’s not the case. By using a letter YOU brought up. Denial of the truth doesn’t change it. Zionists not only did it, they do it today and will continue to do so until they are stopped. Simple as that.

“If the Zionists indeed used mythical stories, according to you, they only used them to save my people, to build a shelter to any Jew in the world experience persecutions, killing and humiliation

And to visit those same persecutions, killings and humiliations on an innocent population that hadn’t done a thing to them. My what lovely noble people. And how come Zionism was created at a time when Jews were actually doing better than ever in Europe?

I used to think a bit like you. I thought that Zionism was about Jews escaping persecution. However I’ve since realised that this is entirely wrong. Zionism is the product of people who’d left the Ghetto and were so terrified of the outside world they had to create a new one to retreat into. Congratulations. You now live in the biggest Jewish Ghetto in history. Complete with wall.

in pogroms in Baghdad

Kind of like the recent pogrom against African refugees in Tel Aviv?

“The Zionist built and still building a nation on their homeland”

Except it wasn’t their homeland to begin with. It was somebody else’s. It was the Palestinians’. The homeland of Palestinian Muslims, Christian and Jews. Not some COLONIST from Brooklyn who’s thin family ties hadn’t been linked to the place in 2000 SODDING YEARS!

the terrible Nakba, in which hundred of thousand became refugees…..was a consequence of the terrible conflict we have here

Except of course the ethnic cleansing began BEFORE any Arab army mobilised. Except of course Zionist leaders were already talking of transferral before the UN resolution of 1947.

As I said at the beginning – read some books on history not the same old tired out mythology.

Oh and one last myth. You know those oh so heroic rebels of Masada that the Israeli govt reburied with pomp and ceremony? You know the martyrs to Jewish pride and independence that were dug up back in the 60’s? THEY WERE ROMAN LEGIONARIES. Unless 1st Century Jewish ritual also included burial of Zealots with PIGS. More Zionist mythology for you.

It also hard to know where to begin with your post because you use to see only one side, without see, even not with one percent sympathy, the other side. Reading your post, I am sure that no matter what I write you, nothing won’t help me. When you will break the walls around you, as I did, and will be ready to see the other side – it will be easy to me. I personally experienced metamorphosis, open my eyes and saw the sufferings of the other side, not only my people sufferings. Since, I am a strong supporter of peace and reconciliation and doing a lot of efforts in this direction in my private life. I chose the comment from NYT because it was one balanced comment, the man recognized the sufferings of the Palestinian people and offered two states solution, as I do. You, in order to attack the Zionist movement, choose only the historic part of the comment, ignoring the fair solution offered (without any connection to the “history” part) and ignoring my fair solution which many Palestinians accept. All your efforts to show that our history is a mythology and nothing truth only show that you are not really interest in peace and reconciliation, only to subvert the existent of the state of Israel.

In the beginning, when I read your first comments, I thought to my self that I “met” a different person. Reading your current comment, I realize I made a mistake. Please, read your comment again, although a lovely English, it contains part that supports calling of destruction of the state of Israel (No, I don’t expect “kumba-ya” but not “death to Israel”), it contains false analogies like many here do routinely, like comparison between pogroms organized by government in which hundreds were killed to protests in Tel-Aviv against African refugees (I don’t justify, OK? In addition, it was also against the Israeli gov that doesn’t find solution to their standard of living) in which no body was killed and the police were there for order. You ignore the fact that those African refugees also legally demonstrated several times, many Jewish and Israeli organizations help them including several persons that give the supper each evening (“Levinsky soup”). I wish you will find the same treatment Jews received during pogroms they experienced.

You continue to claim that all my history is nothing but mythology, and continue to send me more and more mythological stories. You wrote false claims that seems very serious to the reader like “Jews were actually doing better than ever in Europe” showing your ignorance of Jewish history. I wonder what is your obsession with that and why all this efforts done. The first Zionist came to the land of Israel in 1882. In those days most of the planet was under European colonialism. The Zionist had many options then and I wonder why not the fertile land of Uganda “the diamond of Africa” under GB, the mineral and diamond rich mines of Congo under Belgium, water rich land of Senegal under France etc. Why, to the hell, they didn’t asked for the above but chose this tiny land, half non fertile desert land, little water resources, no mineral rich mines and no diamonds, why? I know the answer since I read many balanced history books not only books that serve your anti-Zionist agenda.

I didn’t say you did. I just said I would accept a similar sentence about the NT or the Q.

“So, my dear RoHa, no body ask you use this books, only respect other peoples mythology, religion, beliefs and history, as well as you respect several communities belief that Wandjina created your country.”

I don’t respect anyone’s beliefs. Beliefs are much too important for that.

(And I see that our simple potato seller has Googled a bit of Aboriginal mythology, while at the same time the quality of his English has declined a bit. And no Latin tags, this time.)

“The Zionist movement has values?
I thought you just raped and pillaged until the indigenous Palestinian Arabs fled/were driven out in 1948.
That’s how you made your Jewish majority – through the destruction of the Arab majority.”

“It’s as if the people of Hull in England decided to move, en masse, to Paris and kick out the native French because the people of that part of the UK are descended from the Parisi whereas the French are named for a Germanic people. ”

Sounds like a good idea to me. Get some decent beer, fish and chips, and chicken tikka pizza into the place

@RoHa: English again? Maybe I will send you my comments for editing before sending them to MW? I don’t see any major changes in my English quality.

Why a potato seller can’t read mythology? what’s the main problem? let me surprise you: I didn’t Googl for aboriginal mythology. I have a lot of knowledge about world mythologies and there are some here in MW help me enrich it.

It also hard to know where to begin with your post because you use to see only one side, without see, even not with one percent sympathy, the other side.

Yawn. Zionists have had the it all their way in terms of dictating the narrative for decades. All that time, you hasbarats were perfectly happy so long as only your side of the story was being heard. Now that the other side is given a voice, you cry like babies that your side of the story is not being given consideration.

What you fail to realize, is that your side would be considered if it was legitimate or compelling. Clearly it isn’t. The only way you maintain your narrative, is by keeping it on life support with money and blackmail.

Reading your post, I am sure that no matter what I write you, nothing won’t help me.

That is true MY1. Nothing can help you because you are defending the indefensible. The case you are trying to present is a turd, an no amount of polishing is going to change that.

I chose the comment from NYT because it was one balanced comment, the man recognized the sufferings of the Palestinian people and offered two states solution, as I do.

It was not a balanced comment, it was one that you agreed with. For a start, it was rife with lies and myth, which means it cannot possibly be balanced. If the historic part of the comment is a lie, then it stands to reason that the argument the writer builds from that comment with be flawed. Zionists have used lies and deception for over a century to further their cause, and will continue to.

As Moshe Sharett said at the end of his career:

“I have learned that the state of Israel cannot be ruled
in our generation without deceit and adventurism. These are historical fact that cannot be altered. . . In the end, history will justify both the
stratagems and deceit and the acts of adventurism. All I know is that I, Moshe Sharett, am not capable of them, and I am therefore unsuited to lead this country”
(Simha Flapan, p. 52-53).

In other words, what Moshe Sharett is saying that the “Jewish state”
is incapable of surviving without lying to its citizens and the rest of the
world; in fact it has been national security for the “Jewish state”
to do so. The comment you quoted is such an example.

I wish you will find the same treatment Jews received during pogroms they experienced.

Look up Hebron 1929. Most of the survivors were protected by Arabs.

The first Zionist came to the land of Israel in 1882.

There was no land of Israel in 1882.

Why, to the hell, they didn’t asked for the above but chose this tiny land, half non fertile desert land, little water resources, no mineral rich mines and no diamonds, why?

They were a tiny minority. So tiny in fact that by 1900, there were fewer than 10,000 Jews in all of Palestine.

Most of the world’s Jews wanted to reach the US in the 1930s and 40s. Palestine was not their choice then and it isn’t today either. In fact, polls show that a majority of Israeli Jews would move to another country if they could afford to.

And Lustick’s argument was that there would be less violence ultimately if a failed paradigm is abandoned.

Correct, Political Zionism=Racism in either a single state solution, like Mandate Palestine, or a two state solution, like the UN partition plan. It’s counter-productive to continue to move Gentiles around like pawns on a chessboard in order to draw secure borders around enclaves of intolerant @ssholes.

either a single state solution, like Mandate Palestine, or a two state solution

bra-vo. do two-staters such as Beinart even acknowledge that this is a problem? how successful and lasting could a 2-state solution be if the remaining Muslims and Christians in Israel were still being treated inequitably? And what are the options? Displacing all non-Jews into Gaza and the West Bank and Jordan as part of the ‘solution’, to be replaced with gastarbeiter from Bangladesh or the Philippines or Mexico? I suppose that would be a more honest rendering of the circumstances. as in SA (Saudi Arabia/South Africa) so in Israel.

Correct, Political Zionism=Racism in either a single state solution, like Mandate Palestine, or a two state solution, like the UN partition plan. It’s counter-productive to continue to move Gentiles around like pawns on a chessboard in order to draw secure borders around enclaves of intolerant @ssholes.

I agree with Hostage. This is incisive. The 2SS is the last bastion of Zionism, but in spite of J street’s enthusiasm, it is not doing well, and the internal contradictions are becoming too evident to Americans and American Jews. An increasing number of whom think like Shmuel and I do, indifference to or distance from the Jewish state.

Yes I think so. There are many non-Zionists who support the 2SS. That said, the 2SS is the last bastion of Zionism. The ADL and J St and AIPAC too say they are all for it, as a means of preserving the Jewish state

libra, i am not a zionist and i would support a 2ss in a heartbeat. granted, i don’t believe it will ever come about, nor do i think it’s the best solution to the problem/conflict. but would i support two equal/independent states w/a contiguous border? of course.

But I’m fairly certain that Hostage is a strong supporter of the 2SS versus the 1SS and he’s certainly no Zionist.

No if you review the comment archives here you’ll find that I’m not mathematically challenged about the number of states we finally end up with, so long as they each agree to comply with the core UN human rights conventions, adopt constitutional guarantees of non-discrimination and complete legal equality for all of their citizens, and provide right of transit to the Holy sites in line with international obligations and commitments. Neither side is doing of good job on that score today.

I actually favor an imposed or adjudicated settlement. But I’m a strong supporter of the idea that, pending a final settlement, the strong element of statism in the international order and in national laws requires that the Palestinians must be extended the same benefits of “stateyness” inside the 1967 frontiers that the Israelis currently enjoy in order to level the political and legal playing field.

To be honest, I’ve never viewed anything short of a regional confederation, federal union, or economic union as a realistic long term solution. I’ve commented on the fact that the UN Plan for the Future Government of Palestine recognized the non-viability of the Arab state and mandated the establishment of a common currency and common network of roads and ports, a regional economic union with revenue sharing, right of transit, & constitutional minority protections in both states. But that suggestion simply triggered the current conflict. The Arabs offered a two-state proposal for conciliation during the final special session. It was based upon the model of the U.S. Constitution and the constitutions of the individual states within the USA, but that was rejected as unacceptable by the Jewish representative.

I’d like to see the USA or EU revisit the question of a federal union or confederation and ask the parties why neither of our systems are suitable for our clients?

annie, I’d be delighted if Israel withdrew to its legal borders and left the Palestinians with their own state.

But like you I don’t think a two-state solution will emerge so I see supporting it in the sense of actively pursuing it only serves Zionist interests by spinning out an indefinite ‘peace process’. This is quite different from accepting a two-state outcome if it emerged and I hope this distinction is clear to you. In my view, the only possibility of an Israeli withdrawal would be as a means of avoiding a single, democratic state.

But like you I don’t think a two-state solution will emerge so I see supporting it in the sense of actively pursuing it only serves Zionist interests by spinning out an indefinite ‘peace process’.

That’s actually not the case. The UN upgrade and membership application, combined with the real threat of multilateral treaty accessions and resulting cases in the ICJ and ICC are the only thing that has gotten the attention of the US and Israeli governments in decades.

For 65 years the Palestinians have wasted their time and energy in the courts, because they were considered stateless and lacked any legal standing. Oddly enough, now that they have achieved it, neither their officials nor their activists are using the new status.

The Israelis and South Africans never waited for a final territorial settlement to obtain the advantages of statehood. If the UN is willing to recognize the statehood of a Palestinian Bantustan prior to a final territorial settlement, then we should jump at the opportunity to use that advantage. Other than a referral from the Security Council, only a victim state can ever grant the ICC jurisdiction to prosecute the crime of apartheid.

Thanks for the video you sent me. It just support my claims: The Israeli racist demonstrations are not organized by any governmental body, many were arrested and after several minutes the police scattering the protests. Please, look at the video again. I sure you won’t find resemble videos from Tehran and Beirut in which the police involve and demonstrators are arrested.

Thanks for the video you sent me. It just support my claims: The Israeli racist demonstrations are not organized by any governmental body, many were arrested and after several minutes the police scattering the protests.

Bullshit, these people came out for the state ceremonies and parade and they outnumbered the police and everyone else. The police arrested one guy, not “many” and they walked him past a sea of demonstrators who were still shouting butcher the Arabs, & etc. The line behind that police barricade stretched from horizon to horizon and a few police personnel feebly tried to herd a small handful of racists along without any success. Your dissembling commentary can’t alter or disguise the fact that your claims are irrelevant and are simply beside the point. The state doesn’t need to organize mass racist rallies, when the society is handling that job just fine all by itself.

@Shingo: reading your replies to me I learn only one thing: you are totally unfamiliar with Israel and show your ignorance of the Israeli society. I wonder how one like you that participate in MW, published more than 12,000 comments in this web site, can ignore many facts about the Israeli society and make oversimplification of a very complicated situation in which both peoples here experienced. In addition, I don’t understand why you ignore my fair solution for peace (you don’t have to agree but at least, don’t ignore) and talking to me as a right-winged extremist and fascist. What is your goal, Shingo?

What is your problem with the report I sent you? that it show only two Israeli racists arrested? so? You mix between two terms: “racist activists” and “racist state”. The fact that there are several racist among us doesn’t mean that Israel is racist as well as you won’t never claim that France is racist state because several racists among the French population.

The report deals with racists arrested by the police after they attacked an 24 years old Palestinian. The number of persons, two, has no meaning. Any racist activist commits racist acts in Israel is a criminal before the Israeli law. In this case two, other case four or six or ten – it really doesn’t matter and I think we both waste our time. Don’t mention the tens of Israeli Jewish NGO fighting against racism, helping the victims of racism as much as they can in all means – donations, demonstrations, money, in court and the list is long.

In contrary, no one is arrested in Beirut, for instance, when he screams “Al-Maut La-Israyil”. He is part of an organised demonstration in which he also hears his leaders say the same thing. If you can’t distinguish between the two different conditions, I sure the the honest readers of this comment can do it.

Youtube? No, I have no problem with videos (although you ignore your original comment claim – but, let’s leave it). Here are one video that shows you that my claim that it all is well organized is correct:

maybe I’m tone deaf on this one, but I don’t see much by way of prescription here, more like a somber diagnosis by dr. lustick, and the problem for J-street and other screechers is that they can’t tell the difference between the two. any comment that isn’t fully supportive of the 1,000-year empire meme is met with pants-wetting, arm-flailing hysteria. if lustick’s diagnosis is that there is a high probability that this will all end horribly, Zionists seem to subconsciously acknowledge those odds.

“The point of the two-state solution is to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and to fulfill the Palestinian right to self-determination”

If Palestinians are full and equal citizens in a unified state, they will have as much right of self-determination as redheads have in Australia. (We allow rangas to vote here. One even became Prime Minister!)

” Both Israelis and Palestinians want to fulfill their national aspirations in their own country.”

Own country?
1. If you have full and equal citizenship in a country, it is your own country.
2. Perhaps Elsner means “Palestinians want a country in which the majority of the population is Palestinian Arab and is run by Palestinians.”
(a) Is that really what they want?
(b) Would they prefer a small (West Bank and Gaza) state of that kind to being full and equal citizens in a unified state that encompasses all of Palestine, and sharing it with the local Jews?
Palestinian commenters please advise.

“Likewise, the notion that Israelis whose families came from Arab countries would consider themselves Arabs is absurd. ”

“They managed to preserve their Jewish identity for 2,000 years in exile.”

1. They managed to maintain a Jewish religious community for X000 years. So did Christians. How is that a reason for not considering themselves Arabs?
2. In exile? Not at all. They were in their homes, in (usually) the cities they and their ancestors were born in. How can that be exile?

Both Israelis and Palestinians want to fulfill their national aspirations in their own country. Neither will be satisfied with less.
Israelis have national aspirations? Really? I only know that Zionist Israeli Jews have national aspirations. The J Street guy ignores the Palestinian Israelis, who don’t want to live in a Jewish supremacist state.

“One basis for Zionism is the belief that Jews will be unsafe as tiny minorities in western societies,” writes Phil Weiss.

Well, maybe, but that’s really taking liberties with what was the basis for Zionism. The basis for Zionism was (rather than is) the belief that trusting the emancipation offered by the promise of increasing liberalism of the west will always depend upon the good will of the western societies, which was not considered a safe bet. Pinsker, living in a decidedly nonWestern society, experienced the “progress” towards liberalism in Russia as something decidedly undependable and he was spot on. Yet, his experience in Russia thankfully seems irrelevant when assessing Jewry’s success and acceptance in American society.

I would contend that Zionism today is not based upon definitions from 19th century Russia, but rather simply, supporting the existence of Israel as a state that can protect the Jews who have chosen to live there. (How protecting those Jews and protecting the rights of all its citizens can coexist as ideas or as priorities is a valid question. How safe the Jews living in Israel will be as the present gives way to the future, is another valid question.) But it is the five or six million Jews living in Israel today that form the basis of Zionism today rather than the definitions from 130 years ago.

It is true that many Zionists still view the world as a dangerous place and the world is still a dangerous place for Jews, meaning that Jews have seen fit to flee from Iran and the former Soviet Union in the last 35 years, and though I’m sure many of them fled due to economic opportunities available in the west, I am also sure that many of those who fled did so because they felt unwelcome by their neighbors or by their governments. To say that the Jews prosper in the west does not say that Jews can prosper everywhere in the world and the Jews have voted with their feet to leave certain places and find other places where they feel safer. But I did not believe in the nearness of the apocalypse for Jews in America in 1968, when I heard supporters of Kahane spouting this danger in the background of the teachers strike in the fall of 68 and I do not sense the nearness of the apocalypse (physical) for Jews in America today 45 years later.

Zionism today is based upon the needs of those Jews who live in Israel today and the success of America’s Jews does not undercut the fact that those Jews still need support from America’s Jews. As America’s Jews grow alienated from everything Jewish: whether it is the Sabbath, Yom Kippur, Passover, Sukkot, Hebrew or Yiddish, they will also grow to consider Jews living in Israel as foreigners, who are irrelevant to them.

‘The basis for Zionism was (rather than is) the belief that trusting the emancipation offered by the promise of increasing liberalism of the west will always depend upon the good will of the western societies, ‘…yonah

Everyone’s existence depends on the good will of others.
Even super powers like the US…..if you acculmate enough ill will among others sooner or later they will come after you. No one, no matter how much power they build or fear of them they create can last forever against the will of enough others.
BDS against Israel is an example of ill will it has created.
On the other hand the fact that after 911 the US never rounded up and imprisoned Muslims like we did with certain ethnic groups in WWII, and no hate groups despite their efforts have been able to make US society demand that, is a example of the good will of the majority and lessons learned.

We know we are on a radical site when even J-street is not anti-Israel enough.

I used to be a member and supported the J-Street request for the DOJ to investigate charitable Zionist organizations that fund illegal settlements. But the leadership went weak-kneed and hasn’t done anything remotely similar since then.

J-Street crossed a red line of mine when it opposed granting Palestine UN non-member observer state status. If your organization isn’t removing impediments to the exercise of Palestinian autonomy and self-determination after 65 years and an ICJ advisory opinion which says that it’s illegal to pursue the current Israeli policies, then you are simply AIPAC Lite. If you are in favor of keeping the Palestinians out of the ICC, then you’re part of the problem.

If Israel can’t establish a government and operate a state without the need for immunity from criminal laws and Courts which provide defendants with all of the protections recognized by civilized nations, then the regime deserves to perish.

If Israel can’t establish a government and operate a state without the need for immunity from criminal laws and Courts which provide defendants with all of the protections recognized by civilized nations, then the regime deserves to perish.

“If Israel can’t establish a government and operate a state without the need for immunity from criminal laws and Courts which provide defendants with all of the protections recognized by civilized nations, then the regime deserves to perish.”

Hostage delivers the coup de grace.
BTW so much for Jewish self determination.

/Why do we need self-determination as a nation in a disputed land when we’re a religious group that’s doing just fine in the United States?/

For now Philip for now ,you read history come on.
Jews prospered in many countries all over the course of our history and it always , always ended in tears.
Israel may end in tears as well but that would be our doing as active participants of
world history not as a successful minority that can be whacked on the head whenever economy takes the plunge or some war is lost or some fuhrer wants to mobilize the masses.
Unless you don’t want the Jews to keep their separate and unique identity as a people and go the way of many cultures and peoples before, total assimilation beyond recognition, but then you forfeit the right to speak for Jews.

>> Israel may end in tears as well but that would be our doing as active participants of world history not as a successful minority that can be whacked on the head …

This is too funny!

If Israel ends in tears, the very first thing hateful and immoral Zio-supremacists like you will NOT do is crow about how your predicament is the result of Jews being “active participants of world history”.

What you WILL do instead – guaranteed – is wail and moan about how, once again, Jews – a successful minority, only this time relative to the surrounding majority of Arabs / Mooslims – are helpless, whacked-on-the-head victims.

Jews prospered in many countries all over the course of our history and it always , always ended in tears.

No that just illustrates the fact that you’ve read contrived Zionist propaganda and claptrap that deliberately portrays things that way. Here is what Hannah Arendt had to say on that particular subject:

The history of antisemitism, like the history of Jew-hatred, is part and parcel of the long and intricate story of Jewish-Gentile relations under the conditions of Jewish dispersion. Interest in this history was practically nonexistent prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, when it coincided with the rise of antisemitism and its furious reaction to emancipated and assimilated Jewry—obviously the worst possible constellation for establishing reliable historical records.
Since then, it has been the common fallacy of Jewish and non-Jewish historiography—though mostly for opposite reasons—to isolate the hostile elements in Christian and Jewish sources and to stress the series of catastrophes, expulsions, and massacres that have punctuated Jewish history just as armed and unarmed conflicts, war, famine, and pestilence have punctuated the history of Europe. Needless to add, it was Jewish historiography, with its strong polemical and apologetical bias, that undertook to trace the record of Jew-hatred in Christian history, while it was left to the antisemites to trace an intellectually not too dissimilar record from ancient Jewish authorities. When this Jewish tradition of an often violent antagonism to Christians and Gentiles came to light, “the general Jewish public was not only outraged but genuinely astonished,” so well had its spokesmen succeeded in convincing themselves and everybody else of the non-fact that Jewish separateness was due exclusively to Gentile hostility and lack of enlightenment. Judaism, it was now maintained chiefly by Jewish historians, had always been superior to other religions in that it believed in human equality and tolerance. That this self-deceiving theory, accompanied by the belief that the Jewish people had always been the passive, suffering object of Christian persecutions, actually amounted to a prolongation and modernization of the old myth of chosenness and was bound to end in new and often very complicated practices of separation, destined to uphold the ancient dichotomy, is perhaps one of those ironies which seem to be in store for those who, for whatever reasons, try to embellish and manipulate political facts and historical records.

Arendt is saying exactly what my… I wont say ‘studies of it say, cause I havent studied it in depth…but what my impressions are from reading objective history….that the Jewish- Gentile animosity was always mutual, not a one sided affair on the gentiles/christians part.
The million dollar question is what is it that will not let jewish leadership or many Jews admit to their half of the problem?
When, how and why did the insistence on it being strictly the ‘others’
failing come about?

..that the Jewish- Gentile animosity was always mutual, not a one sided affair on the gentiles/christians part.

Actually it WAS a one sided relationship.

The big difference was that the Christians had an army / armies and an Empire and the Jews didn’t.

Therefore the Christians had the POWER to act and to discriminate against the Jews in a way that was unavailable to the Jews.

So actually you are wrong.

Some Jews may well have disliked non-Jews/ Christians or Gentiles as you call them , but they had no power to being able to discriminate against them in the way Christian society and authorities had the power to do with Jews.

The Jews had no power on a scale worth mentioning to expel Christians from their homelands or to imprison them in ghettoes as the Christian authorities did to Jews.

But you are certainly correct when you admit that you don’t know much about the subject.

Doesnt matter if jews had a army or no power or not they resented christians as christians did them…probably even more so for those very reasons.
Judaism lost the contest for the most religious followers in ancient days to christianity and Islam…..it’s over and done……give it up.

But still mutual in terms of animosity. The fact that Christians had an army / armies and an Empire and the Jews didn’t doesn’t disprove there was mutual animosity.

So actually it is you that are wrong.

Some Jews may well have disliked non-Jews/ Christians or Gentiles as you call them , but they had no power to being able to discriminate against them in the way Christian society and authorities had the power to do with Jews.

The same way that some Palestinian may well have disliked Jews , but they have no power to being able to discriminate against them in the way Israeli society and authorities had the power to do with Palestinians.

Of course, that doesn’t stop hasbarats like you shrieking about the nasty things that you allege appear in Palestinian text books. In fact, you Zionists keep pretending that it is the root of the problem.

The Jews had no power on a scale worth mentioning to expel Christians from their homelands or to imprison them in ghettoes as the Christian authorities did to Jews.

The Palestnians have no power on a scale worth mentioning to expel Jews from their homelands or to imprison them in ghettoes as the Israelis authorities did to Palestnians, but you hasbarats still insist they are an existential threat.

But thank you Miriam for making my job of shredding your pathetic argument so easy by providing the rope to hang yourself with.

So Hannah basically claimed that Jew started seeing the only the half empty glass instead of the half full.
But that wasn’t my point.

That wasn’t Hannah’s point either. She said that Zionists and anti-Semites alike had cherry-picked events that punctuated history, rather than predominated it, in order to construct deliberately tendentious narratives. Everyone realizes that it is racist for anti-Semites to do that, my point was that it’s just as racist when you Zionists do it.

Arendt problematic placement of modern anti-Semitism in the fabric of European history.

Her key statement on this issue, which pervades her entire discussion of anti-Semitism, is that “modern anti-Semitism grew in proportion as traditional nationalism declined, and reached its climax at the exact moment when the European system of nation-states and its precarious balance of powers crashed.”

There is no historical support for this contention, and research shows that the opposite is true: It was the rise of the modern nation-state, and the challenges it faced, that led to the sharp increase in anti-Semitism. As Zeev Sternhell has shown, the rise of integral nationalism at the end of the 19th century in France was channeled in the Dreyfus affair into extreme anti-Semitism, and studies by George Mosse and Peter Pulzer indicate a similar link in Germany and Austria.

Moreover, and this is totally missing from Arendt’s account, the rise of aggressive anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe is directly connected to the rise of nationalist movements and nation-states there. As nationalism thrived and achieved its political aims in Romania, Hungary, Poland and Lithuania, anti-Semitism increased when the nationalist movements had to confront the existence of a relatively large Jewish minority in their territories. Apart from a discussion of Russia, where Arendt’s analyses are riddled with her problematic view of pan-Slavism as an expression of the failure of Russian nationalism, Eastern Europe is absent from Arendt’s discussion. This raises the following very big question: How is it possible to discuss modern anti-Semitism while ignoring what happened to the most sizable Jewish population, which was in Eastern Europe?

Her key statement on this issue, which pervades her entire discussion of anti-Semitism, is that “modern anti-Semitism grew in proportion as traditional nationalism declined, and reached its climax at the exact moment when the European system of nation-states and its precarious balance of powers crashed.” There is no historical support for this contention, and research shows that the opposite is true

To be perfectly honest, he doesn’t cite any of the research which shows that anti-Semitism has ever been any worse than it was when the totalitarian regimes of Europe exterminated between 4 and a half and six million Jews. That did happen just before those regimes were toppled and replaced by democratic ones which are based upon the acquis communautaire, the cumulative body of European Community laws. The EU does provide for equal human rights and requires members to abolish discriminatory laws and criminalize aspects of racism and xenophobia prior to accession.

I’d be interested to hear about all of those other, more extreme cases of anti-Semitism that Shlomo Avineri’s researchers turned-up.

Anti-semitism is to be found on the other side of the coin of Jewish chauvinistic history writing.

Yes, in Der Judenstaat Herzl declared that he would harness anti-Semitism and employ it as the engine to drive the Political Zionist movement. The relationship has always been a symbiotic one. There are even vestigial organs to detect anti-Semitism, like the ADL, which no longer have any functional utility.

Sought of solipsistic & nihilistic if not also narcissistic, Oleg.
We are ready for annihilation, we made conquest, it didn’t work out, so let’s perish!
Instead of:
Hell, we finally have a Country after 2.500yrs, we inhabit, with 5.9mill, only 9.0K Sq Km while we control 21.0K Sq Km contiguous Falesteena proper, declare unilateral peace, pull back to the 67 borders & have a good night’s sleep.
No, you want it all & you want it now! You already have it now, but you won’t be abe to keep it! Dream on.
ziusudra
PS 50% of confessors don’t even want to live there!
Just who are you speaking for?

“The book and the television films are full of such little revelations that add up to a culture, the prosaic along with the poetic: a doodle on a child’s Hebrew exercise page from medieval Cairo; battling cats and mice on a sumptuously illustrated Bible from Spain; the touchingly meagre dowry of an Egyptian slave girl from the fifth century BC married to a local Jewish temple official; a Jewish general of a Muslim army in 11th-century Spain watching his soldiers sleep in the ruins of an abandoned fort and composing lines of sombre, beautiful meditation; the great doctor-philosopher Maimonides writing a manual of sexual performance for a wasted Muslim potentate and recommending rubbing a concoction of crushed “saffron ants” on the problematic member for hours on end (therapy or revenge?); a 14th-century Mallorcan Jewish map painter smuggling a little star of David on to his “Catalan Atlas”; the illuminator of the most spectacular Bible produced in the Middle Ages, signing his name in Hebrew letters comprised of acrobatic clowning figures some of them without a stitch on”

and you were told that it all lead inexorably to Baruch Goldstein declaring Jewish sovereignty in Hebron.

“Jews prospered in many countries all over the course of our history and it always , always ended in tears.What a dismal brainwashing you got ”

Your comment linking to an interview with the glorious Simon Schama is lovely and a treat , but , are you aware that Schama is a self confessed Zionist?

Schama also says that he is a Zionist in the context of him being filmed standing in the site of a memorial to the Jewish victims of Nazism which is the subject the fourth episode will deal with.

The third episode is all about how the Jews in Europe during the nineteenth century into the early twentieth century thought , completely erroneously as it turned out , that their fortunes had changed and they were finally free.

He says so towards the end of the third episode in his history of the Jews

“Jews prospered in many countries all over the course of our history and it always , always ended in tears.”
What a dismal brainwashing you got

Simon Schama is a self declared Zionist!

How bizarre and ironic that an anti – Zionist like you uses a programme made by a historian who is a Zionist – because unfortunately for your argument , he (Schama) , has in fact come to much the same conclusions about Jewish history as OlegR has!

“Jews prospered in many countries all over the course of our history and it always , always ended in tears.

You can say the same of pretty much any population if you’re selective of your history.

For example, if I “stop” history now I can say relations between Christians and Muslims always “ended” in tears. Or if I “stop” history at another point I can state that in relations between the Irish and the English, the Irish were fated to be Blighty’s whipping boy. Your statement is a-historical.

Jeremiah Haber noted in the above article, quite correctly, that: “To this day, most lay people, Jews and non-Jews, accept the myth of the exile, whereas no historian, Jew or non-Jew, takes it seriously.”

“The Myth of the Jewish Exile from the Land of Israel: A Demonstration of Irenic Scholarship” by Israel Jacob Yuval

The “exile” was a myth that was actually developed by early Christians, and was designed to insult Jews and claim they had supposedly been “exiled from the land” as a punishment from God for rejecting the Christian Gospel (once again see historians like Israel Jacob Yuval, Shlomo Sand, etc.)

As for Arab Jews, they mostly descend from various converts to the religion of Judaism in the Arab world. There was widespread Judaizing in (just for a few examples) Iraq (see Nippur) and also very famously in Yemen (with the Himyarite/Himyar convert empire there). The same was true in Berber North Africa (which was later of course mostly culturally and linguistically Arabized and mostly religiously Islamized), conversion to the religion of Judaism was quite common among the pre-Islamic Berbers (and that is were modern Jews of Tunisian, Algerian, etc. backgrounds predominantly come from: i.e. Arabized Berber Jews, who while being Arabized never adopted the religion of Islam). The only thing that was ever “different” about these people (speaking about Arab Jews in the modern era) was their religious beliefs and practices, in every other manner they were completely products of their home culture and also very much alien to the culture, “tastes” and culture of the far more numerous European Jews. Anyone who knows about the history of the so-called “Oriental Jews” in Israel (i.e. the Israeli Black Panther party, etc.) knows the tensions that were heavily present between the European Jewish elite and the Arab Jews from the start.

Johns Hopkins University geneticist Dr. Eran Elhaik (http://eelhaik.aravindachakravartilab.org/) “The various groups of Jews in the world today do not share a common genetic origin. We are talking here about groups that are very heterogeneous and which are connected solely by religion.” (Haaretz)

There was an exile from Jerusalem for a few hundred years (pre Muhammad) when the PTB did not let Jews into Jerusalem except once a year. This is not the exile of the myth, but it is an exile and if one accepts that it is problematic when Israel cuts off Muslims from visiting Jerusalem, then the exile from Jerusalem must be viewed as a major political event and to dismiss the exile from Israel as a myth and not to mention the factual exile from Jerusalem is also to cheat us of accuracy of the history and to slant it the other way.

“The Byzantine Emperor Constantine, however, rebuilt Jerusalem as a Christian center of worship, building the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 335. Jerusalem had received special recognition in Canon VII of the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Constantine’s mother, Helena, made a pilgrimage to the city and claimed to have recovered the cross of Christ. Jews were still banned from the city, except during a brief period of Persian rule from 614 to 629.”

Shingo writes: “Jews who lived there were left alone.” Show me a link, anti hasbara fail.

“The hostile attitude of the Christianized state, which later became more and more accentuated under Constantine’s sons, thus owed its origin to Constantine himself; it is even probable that it was Constantine who renewed the law prohibiting the Jews from entering Jerusalem.”

Second source: shalomjerusalem.com
Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem except on one day a year, to mourn the destruction of the Temple.

At the beginning of the 7th century, the Jews looked to the Persians for salvation. Hoping to be permitted to worship freely once the Byzantine oppression had been removed, the Jews encouraged the Persians’ conquest of Acre and Jerusalem, and a Jewish community was subsequently allowed to settle and worship in Jerusalem (614-17), though it was later expelled.

There were, of course, periods when the Jews were, by imperial decree, indeed forced to abandon their holy city. Emperor Hadrian, with his victory over Bar Kokhba’s insurgent forces in 135, issued precisely such an order as part of his general persecution of Jews throughout Palestine. The persecution was suppressed by his successor Antoninus Pius (r. 137-161) early in the latter’s reign. We are informed by the tenth-century chronicler Eutychius (Ibn Batriq) that, during the 4th century, Constantine the Great once again prohibited Jewish habitation of Jerusalem–an assertion which, if true, can only indicate that during the intermediate two centuries the original decree had largely fallen into disuse. Like many other Byzantine decrees, this one too proved to be of a temporary nature.

325 CE Constantine, who had adopted Christianity as the official Roman religion in 313, and his mother, decide to rebuild the places in Jerusalem that appeared in the New Testament. Jerusalem becomes a major Byzantine center. Constantine forbids Jews from entering the city.

135 A.D. The Roman Emperor Hadrian destroys Jerusalem and builds on its site a city with new walls called Aelia Capitolina, with a temple on Mount Moriah dedicated to Jupiter. Hadrian bans the Jews from Jerusalem, and all Jews who defy the ban are executed.

an assertion which, if true, can only indicate that during the intermediate two centuries the original decree had largely fallen into disuse. Like many other Byzantine decrees, this one too proved to be of a temporary nature.

i urge everyone to scroll up and read the 1842 preface. a must read, i think it’s a dispensationalist edict. to bring the lord to the jews. come on yonah, is this the best you can do? and someone has taken the trouble to revive it in modern paperback

German-French historian; born in Münster, Germany, May 11, 1784; died in Paris Sept. 5, 1853. He went to Paris in 1803, where he lived as teacher and writer. Besides other historical works, he wrote: “Les Juifs dans le Moyen Age, Essai Historique sur Leur Etat Civil, Commercial et Littéraire,” Paris, 1834; 2d ed., 1844; German transl., Stuttgart, 1834. Depping was especially attracted to the history of the Jews in Europe during the Middle Ages by “its wealth of instruction for us; one can see from this history how fanaticism has been able to root out kindness and neighborly love, . . . and what misfortunes met those exiles who in barbaric times wished to preserve their national customs and a religion offensive to those among whom they lived.” The book owed its origin to the offer of a prize, in 1821, by the Royal Academy for a work describing the condition of the Jews in France during the medieval period. Depping’s work was given honorable mention, but did not win the prize. He later enlarged the work, extendingits scope to the general history of the Jews in Europe. The medieval Christian sources—documents, letters, chronicles, and histories, especially those dealing with the history of the Jews in France —were studied by Depping with great diligence and not without critical acumen. This fact gives importance to the book. But it is to be regretted that those rabbinical sources which were not accessible in the form of translations were but seldom consulted. As a consequence the few passages relating to the literature of the Jews are of no value (compare, especially on Rashi, pp. 113 et seq.; Zunz, “Z. G.” pp. 151, 446). The Introduction (pp. v.-xxiv.) contains a short but valueless review of the history of the Jews up to their appearance in Europe. Depping’s style is pleasing.

Jews were still banned from the city, except during a brief period of Persian rule from 614 to 629.

From ‘Jerusalem: A Biography
by Simon Sebag Montefiore.
Part Three : Christianity.
Chapter 15
The Apogee of Byzantium
312-518 AD

Pages 147- 148;

In 333AD;

Yet a small Jewish community had been living in Jerusalem, praying at a synagogue on Mount Zion, for OVER A CENTURY and Jews discreetly prayed on the deserted Temple Mount.

Now the ‘detestable mob of Jews’ as Constantine called them, were banned from Jerusalem except ONCE A YEAR when they were allowed on to the Temple Mount, where the Bordeaux pilgrim saw them ‘mourn and rend their garments’ over the ‘perforated stone’ – the foundation-stone of the Temple, today enclosed by the Dome of the Rock.

From Jerusalem: A Biography by the same author
Julian the Apostate: Jerusalem restored.
Page 149;
362AD;

However on 19 July 362 Emperor Constantine was succeeded by his nephew Julian;

Yet the Jews now found sympathy in a surprising place : the Emperor (Julian) decided to overturn Christianity – and rebuild the Jewish Temple.
Julian reversed the Hadrianic and Constantinian persecutions, restored Jerusalem to the Jews, returned their property, revoked the anti -Jewish taxes and granted power of taxation and the title praetorian perfect to their patriarch Hillel. Jews must have poured into Jerusalem from all over the Roman and Persian worlds to celebrate this miracle.
They reclaimed the Temple Mount..

Page 150;

Julian appointed Alypius to rebuild the Jewish Temple. Building materials were stored in the so called Stables of Solomon.
As the Jews took control of Jerusalem, Julian invaded Persia with 65,000 troops. But on 27 May 363 Jerusalem was struck by an earthquake that somehow ignited the building materials. The Christians were delighted by this ‘ wonderful phenomenon,’ though they may well have helped it along with arson.

Page 150-151;
363AD

(Julian) was succeeded by the commander of his guard, who restored Christianity, reversed all Julian’s acts and again banned Jews from Jerusalem.In 391-2 Theodosius 1 made Christianity the empire’s official religion and started to enforce it.

In 130 , the emperor visited Jerusalem and decided to abolish the city, even down to its very name. He ordered a new city to be built on the site of the old one , to be named Aelia Capitolina , after his own family and Jupiter Capitolinus ( the god most associated with the empire) The Jews, realizing that the Temple would never be rebuilt smarted under these blows.

Now in Jerusalem, on the wreckage of the Jewish city, he ( Hadrian)planned a classic Roman town built around the worship of Roman, Greek and Egyptian gods.
A splendid three- gated entrance, the Neapolis ( today’s Damascus Gate) opened into a circular space, decorated with a column , whence the two main streets , the Cardines – the axes – led down to two forums, one close to the demolished Antonia Fortress and the other south of today’s Holy Sepulchre.
There Hadrian built his Temple of Jupiter with a statue of Aphrodite outside it, on the very rock where Jesus had been crucified , possibly a deliberate decision to deny the site to Jewish Christians.

Worse , Hadrian planned a shrine on the Temple Mount , marked by a grandiose equestrian statue of himself.

Hadrian was deliberately eradicating Jerusalem’s Jewishness.

Outraged by the repression, the paganization of Jerusalem the Jews stashed weapons and prepared underground complexes in the Judean hills.
Once Hadrian was safely on his way, a mysterious leader known as the Prince of Israel ( Simon Bar Kochba ) launched the most terrible of the Jewish Wars.

Hadrian bans the Jews from Jerusalem, and all Jews who defy the ban are executed.

Yonah , this must have all occurred after the Bar Kochba uprising.

I can’t find any reference in this part in Montefiore’s history of Jerusalem , that is to execution of Jews immediately after Hadrian built his Temple of Jupiter.
Instead when Hadrian abolished Jerusalem after about 130 AD , he banned circumcision on pain of death.

After the defeat and death of Bar Kochba of Montefiore’s book on page 137 it reads;

‘Very few survived,’ wrote Cassius Dio. ‘Fifty of their outposts and 985 villages were razed to the ground . 585,000 were killed in battles’ and many more by starvation, disease and fire’. So many Jews were enslaved that at the Hebron market they fetched less than a horse. Jews continued to live on in the countryside, but Judea itself never recovered from Hadrian’s ravages.
Hadrian not only enforced the ban on circumcision but banned Jews from even approaching Aelia, on pain of death.
Jerusalem had vanished.
Hadrian had renamed it Palaestina , after the Jews ancient enemies, the Philistines.

In 130 , the emperor visited Jerusalem and decided to abolish the city, even down to its very name. He ordered a new city to be built on the site of the old one , to be named Aelia Capitolina , after his own family and Jupiter Capitolinus

The city of Rome was rebuilt over the ruins of the previous city a number of times. None of those events ever coincided with Romans being driven from the city.

Same with Jerusalem.

Hadrian had renamed it Palaestina , after the Jews ancient enemies, the Philistines.

Provably false, seeing as the entire region was known as Palestine in the 5th Century BCE.

were banned from Jerusalem except ONCE A YEAR when they were allowed on to the Temple Mount, where the Bordeaux pilgrim saw them ‘mourn and rend their garments’ over the ‘perforated stone’ – the foundation-stone of the Temple, today enclosed by the Dome of the Rock.

Of course, there is not one iota of evidence that the Temple ruins lied under the Dome of the Rock. Feel free to cite one of the the professional, internationally respected archeologists who has published conclusive evidence of an ancient Jewish Temple under the Haram al-Sharif.

Early Zionists deliberately declared that the structure was Herod’s Wall and then made it a national relic. See Adam Shatz (ed), “Prophets Outcast: A Century of Dissident Jewish Writing about Zionism and Israel”, Nation Books, 2004 page 53

BTW Miriam. Did you know that a proclamation was publicized in the late 1960′s, signed by many major Rabbis from all the streams of Orthodoxy, saying that it is forbidden to enter the entire area of the Temple Mount?

Emperor Hadrian’s total destruction of the city of Jerusalem
rebuilds the city with new walls and renames it Aelia Capitolina

So both Titus and Hadrian totally destroyed the City? And Medieval Jews started praying at one of the walls built by Hadrian?

Archeologists have established with certainty that the Kotel was built long after Herod’s death. See “New Theory on When Western Wall Was Built: The discovery of a new ritual pool under the Western Wall suggests a new theory that the Kotel was completed later than thought.”http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/150027#.UjxnBn-c509

So how did Jews living in the modern era know what they claim to know about the exact location of places and things that disappeared 20 centuries ago? I’m just curious. Remember that atheistic Zionists conducted xenophobic parades to this Wall and claimed it was built by Herod. They demanded that others acknowledge their national relic as if it were an established fact, e.g.

Letter To The Keren Hajessod (Dr. Chaim Koffler) Of The Palestine Foundation Fund

Sigmund Freud
Vienna: 26 February 1930
Dear Sir,

I cannot do what you wish. I am unable to overcome my aversion to burdening the public with my name, and even the present critical time does not seem to me to warrant it. Whoever wants to influence the masses must give them something rousing and inflammatory and my sober judgment of Zionism does not permit this.
…
I concede with sorrow that the unrealistic fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust. I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of Herod’s wall into a national relic, thereby challenging the feelings of the natives.

Now judge for yourself whether I, with such a critical point of view, am the right person to come forward as the solace of a people deluded by unjustified hope.
Your obedient servant,
Freud

The Arutz Sheva article admits that the structure dates from much later than Herod the Great’s time but seems rather confident that it dates to the time of Agrippa around 40, though this is very difficult to reconcile with Josephus’ account.

I concede with sorrow that the unrealistic fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust. I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of Herod’s wall into a national relic, thereby challenging the feelings of the natives.

I wasn’t aware of that quote, which seems to be compatible with the views of Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, etc. — the best and the brightest in the Jewish world at that time. Fascinating.

I’ve noticed that many militant Zionists often invoke the names of Einstein, Freud and other great Jewish minds in vague expressions of ethnic, tribal and cultural chauvinism and triumphalism, without understanding a word of what they wrote or spoke. It’s a syndrome. They are no Einsteins or Freuds.

I think Hadrian’s activities are often reported a bit too dramatically. Barbara Geller (Oxford Hist Biblical World, p.422) strikes a sounder note by saying cautiously ‘Jews may have been banned from Jerusalem and its vicinity, although the degree to which such a ban was enforced by later emperors, as well as its duration, are unclear’. Clearly, Jerusalem was for some time a pagan city. But I’d have thought that the instructions of the Mishnah about leaving produce to rot in Jerusalem ‘when there is no sanctuary’ imply that there was a Jewish population within reach, still able to perform religious ceremonies at least discreetly. The rabbis of that time are sometimes depicted as on good personal terms with Roman Emperors, who surely wouldn’t, in that situation, have had the habit of dramatically inflicting death penalties on Jews who even set foot in the Holy City. Cassius Dio’s casualty figures are indeed horrific. I certainly wouldn’t dismiss them but I think they could be questioned. This passage is from the paraphrase of Dio by Xiphilinus written many centuries later after much exchange of rhetoric by Jews and Christians. The Christian rhetoric, I should admit, is not particularly creditable.

@Miriam, Montefiore was simply regurgitating a third hand anonymous account that was derived from an unreliable Christian polemicist, Eusebius Pamphili. This one barely rises to the status of a hoary legend.

In any event, there is no explanation given to account for all of the tinsel that Montefiore adds to these accounts, like the idea that the perforated Temple foundation is located inside the Dome of the Rock today. Neither Eusebius nor his “anonymous pilgrim from Bordeaux” could have ever seen either the Temple or the Dome of the Rock or said anything which would lead to that conclusion.

@Miriam, Montefiore was simply regurgitating a third hand anonymous account that was derived from an unreliable Christian polemicist, Eusebius Pamphili. This one barely rises to the status of a hoary legend.

Hostage , I block quoted Montefiore because I wanted to provide another source for Yonah and to try using Montefiore’s book to flesh out some possible details of the periods that Yonah referred to.

As it is I am busy ferreting through Montefiore’s notes at the back of his book to see his sources.

Annie and shingo- You objected to my poor sourcing, so I was forced to declare google insufficient and go to the library (brick and mortar, horror of horror) and take Encyclopedia Judaica off the shelf. (I don’t know if they have a copy in your branch library and if you insist I can go back and find their sources, but meanwhile the encyclopedia will have to suffice.)

I edited with no intent on changing any meaning, but for the sake of saving time.

Aftermath of the Temple destruction in 70 CE:
Most of the people in the city had either been killed or had perished from hunger. The survivors were sold into slavery or executed. The city was destroyed except for three towers and the portion of a wall which were spared to protect the 10th Legion.
Jerusalem remained in ruins for 61 years. Some inhabitants returned and settled around the 10th Legion’s camp. As many as 7 synagogues were in existence when Hadrian visited and changed things in 130.
Hadrian set up the plan to rebuild Jerusalem with the new name Aelia Capitalonia. Hadrian declared that no circumcised person should be allowed into Jerusalem and its territory under penalty of death.

As we approach the year 300, the Christian community developed peacefully. One of its bishops died a centenarian. In his time Christian pilgrimages began. The Jews profited from a de facto relaxation of the prohibition against visiting Jerusalem as pilgrims.

Constantine changed that. In 335 the church (of the sepulchre) was dedicated. The prohibition against the entrance of Jews into the city was renewed (with the exception of the 9th of Av.)

In 438 the Empress Eudocia visited Jerusalem for the first time. Due to her intervention, Jews were again allowed to live in the city.

Unless you wish to put your reputation on the line in opposing the Encyclopedia Judaica, I think you should concede that in the first 370 years after the destruction of the temple, Jewish inhabitation of Jerusalem suffered depending upon the mood of the authorities, some of whom threw the Jews out of Jerusalem and others who were more liberal.

The exile from the land of Israel is a myth but the seizure of the capitol Jerusalem and the severe restrictions on Jews vis a vis living in Jerusalem and even visiting Jerusalem from the time of the temple’s destruction until the Muslim Conquest, which included periodic exiling from the city (ethnic cleansing is the current term) is a historical fact.

I was forced to declare google insufficient and go to the library (brick and mortar, horror of horror) and take Encyclopedia Judaica off the shelf. (I don’t know if they have a copy in your branch library and if you insist I can go back and find their sources, but meanwhile the encyclopedia will have to suffice.)

????

Access to Encyclopedia Judaica
Encyclopedia Judaica is made available to the community through the generosity of the Bureau of Jewish Education and its donors. To show your appreciation for this resource, please consider making a donation to the Bureau of Jewish Education.Click Here to make a donation
– or –Click here to access Encyclopedia Judaica

Hostage , I block quoted Montefiore because I wanted to provide another source for Yonah and to try using Montefiore’s book to flesh out some possible details of the periods that Yonah referred to.

As it is I am busy ferreting through Montefiore’s notes at the back of his book to see his sources. Will try to get back to you.

Don’t waste your time. His footnotes for this section contain further discussions and editorializing, not citations to his sources. The text of this passage itself explains that it is a discussion about the account of “an anonymous visitor from Bordeaux” in 333. That information is on the previous page where Montefiore’s lamentations about “Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea” begins, i.e. Kindle location 3438.

P.S. The authors of this Encyclopedia Judaica article are retelling the same polemical and doubtful historical accounts that anyone can find in Josephus, Eusebius, et. al. for themselves – and they don’t even bother to credit them. This is rapidly turning into an exercise in finding secondary references to the same original accounts. I’ve already pointed out that the original authors themselves relied upon second-hand anonymous accounts and legends. So all of this has to be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.

Provably false, seeing as the entire region was known as Palestine in the 5th Century BCE.

Anti hasbara fail!

During the Roman Iudaea period there was only an entity known as Iudaea ( ie Judea)

How exactly could the Romans have conquered a place that according to you didn’t exist!

Roman Iudaea period

Following the Roman conquest of Judea led by Pompey in 63 BCE, Aulus Gabinius, proconsul of Syria, split the former Hasmonean Kingdom into five districts of legal and religious councils known as sanhedrin based at Jerusalem, Sepphoris (Galilee), Jericho, Amathus (Perea) and Gadara.[74][75] Roman rule was solidified when Herod, whose dynasty was of Idumean ancestry, was appointed as king.[57][76] Following a brief intervention by Pacorus I of Parthia, from 37 Iudaea under Herod I was a client kingdom of the Roman Empire.

Roman Syria Palaestina period
;In 132 CE, the Emperor Hadrian joined the province of Iudaea (comprising Samaria, Judea proper, and Idumea) with Galilee to form new province of Syria Palaestina. Hadrian probably chose a name that revived the ancient name of Philistia (Palestine), combining it with that of the neighboring province of Syria, in an attempt to suppress Jewish connection to the land. Jerusalem was renamed “Aelia Capitolina” and temples were built there to honor Roman gods, particularly Jupiter. In 135 CE, the victory in Bar Kokhba’s revolt by Hadrian resulted in 580,000 Jews killed (according to Cassius Dio) and destabilization of the region’s Jewish population.

See this map 125AD. Notice the name Judea yet again!

English: Map of the Roman Empire in 125 during the reign of emperor Hadrian.

Weiss writes, “Why do we need self-determination as a nation in a disputed land when we’re a religious group that’s doing just fine in the United States?”

As I wrote above, my primary consideration today vis a vis Israel is the future vis a vis the Jews who live there (and the nonJews who live there.) (NonJews is a subclause rather than my first concern, as in, I want there to be peace and the mixing of people without animosity because such a future is what I idealize for the future generations of Jews.)

But I wish to raise another point that Oleg has touched upon and that is the question of assimilation. Phil hides his assimilationism when he purports to celebrate the “religious group that is doing fine”. As individuals we are doing fine, but as a religious group the dominant force is towards disappearance into the American mass of celebrating Christmas. (Sorry to pick on Christmas, might as well pick on Halloween. Unfortunately the Jewish equivalent of Halloween, Purim, is fraught with all kind of toxic issues, so Christmas gets the nod.) Jews for a variety of reasons are anti religion more than other groups and the religious affiliation of Jews is dwindling, something that is celebrated by Weiss and MW. America will benefit from the talent of Jews who shed their Jewish identity in the future, as America has in the past, but to blithely advocate assimilation in one moment and assert ‘the religious group is dong fine’ in the next moment (without comment) is to avoid an obvious issue.

Jews for a variety of reasons are anti religion more than other groups

that’s doubtful. it just so happens individuals born into other religions don’t self identify as ‘peoples’ or ‘nations’ with those religions after they are no longer religious, as jews do. but jews are no more prone to being anti religious than any others.

it just so happens individuals born into other religions don’t self identify as ‘peoples’ or ‘nations’ with those religions after they are no longer religious, as jews do.

Fair enough, but the Westphalian system of nation-states developed out of western notions about the Jewish scriptures and what they said about sovereignty, absolute power, and the divine right of kings. So you are only describing a relatively recent “Post-Christendom” development. For hundreds of years, Christians carried their nationality and laws with them wherever they went under the regime of the Capitulations and similar treaties with non-Christian countries, like Japan and China. As a rule westerners refused to submit to indigenous governments or judicial systems that they considered heathen or uncivilized.

Hannah Arendt and Tony Judt noted that Zionism and the Jewish state were harmful anachronisms that harkened back to that 19th century concept of ethnic states and frame of mind.

The only compulsory incantation that Judaism prescribed for its members required them to proclaim that Israel is a nation:

“An Aramean [sought to] destroy my forefather, and he went down to Egypt and sojourned there with a small number of people, and there, he became a great, mighty, and numerous nation.

— Deuteronomy 26:5

That identity is cultural and doesn’t necessarily depended upon faithful religious practice. Just a few chapters later, the scripture contains a prophecy that foretells a time when completely unfaithful members of the tribes will be driven from the land and scattered among the nations and worship other Gods. But even that situation doesn’t effect their calling or mean that they are both cursed and cut off from among “their people”, since their fallen state remains a sign to others and the restoration of their descendants is also foretold by prophets, like Ezekiel. So, the secular concepts of peoples and nations – and the exile of intact communities in other nations – were woven into the fabric of the religion and culture of Israel from the very beginning. That may be unique, but so-called Christian supercessionists and colonizers adopted similar practices. IMO, those are simply historical curiosities and artifacts of a bygone era.

point taken hostage, and yes i was primarily referencing modern times. i come from a long line of christians (ministers on my fathers side) but wouldn’t think of calling myself a christian since i wasn’t raised in a religious home. that’s not the case for jews who (for the most part) self identify as jews whether they are secular or religious. but my point was, and perhaps i am wrong, jews are not more ‘anti religion’ than others. are they? more than me and my siblings/family? i don’t think so. albeit i don’t think of us as ‘anti-religious’ (that’s not polite or tolerant), i would just use the term non religious.

Jewish people like Dawkins are often times extremists or fundamentalists of another kind. An appreciation of humanistic philosophy and Jewish socialism didn’t prevent Ben Gurion from exiling three quarters of a million Palestinian people without a care in the world for the fact that they might be deprived of shelter, food, and water in the middle of the coming winter.

He and others showed more concern over the matter of the excommunication of a long-dead Spinoza and the feelings of the large secular community in Israel who considered him the father of Jewish humanism. In a 1927 address at the Hebrew University some of them declared the excommunication rescinded. In 1956, on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of Spinoza’s excommunication, Ben Gurion wrote articles, arranged to have a monument shipped to Amsterdam, and had the Foreign Minister order the Israeli Ambassador to attend the ceremony for its unveiling:

Earlier, in an article, Ben -Gurion addressed the issue of Spinoza’s excommunication. “It is difficult to blame the Jewish community in seventeenth century Amsterdam. Their position was precarious . . . and the traumatized Jewish community had the right to defend their cohesion. But today the Jewish people do not have the right to forever exclude Spinoza the immortal from the Community of Israel.”

Ben-Gurion insisted that the Hebrew language is not complete without the works of Spinoza. And indeed, shortly after the publication of his article, the Hebrew University published the entire body of Spinoza’s work in Hebrew.

Some Jews wished Ben-Gurion to appeal to the Amsterdam rabbinate for reversal of the excommunication, but he declined and wrote: “I did not seek to have the excommunication annulled, since I took it for granted that the excommunication is null and void . . . There is a street in Tel-Aviv bearing Spinoza’s name, and there is not one single reasonable person in this country who thinks that the excommunication is still in force.”

annie robbins- (anti religious might have been the wrong word, but, nonetheless. Once I find a better formulation I will let you know.)
Read a poll or visit the old confederacy or Latino neighborhood or a black neighborhood.. Christians attend church more often than Jews attend services in America. it’s a fact. If I have to start linking, tell me so and over the weekend I’ll do some research.

Peter Beinart spoke at a Jewish venue last May in which he attempted to explain why Jews vote Democratic in America and along with his theories and history, he presented some polling on some basic issues and in terms of separation between church and state, Jews were far more committed to separation between church and state than other Americans and they were far less likely to attend services. But if you want links, I’ll try to link later.

“As individuals we are doing fine, but as a religious group the dominant force is towards disappearance into the American mass of celebrating Christmas.”

Free choice, individualism, is the core of a tolerant society, and the American state is a major, if not the top proponent and protector of the citizen as an individual. Glad you concede it’s doing fine regarding Jewish individuals. The American cultural ideal in the 20th Century was signaled in the term “the melting pot.” Gradually, beginning in the latter half of that Century, the ideal was expressed as a “salad bowl,” appealing to Diverstity; the current metaphore is “the stew pot.” This latest metaphor tries to strike a balance between assimilation and diversity–lots of bits and pieces, some chunks, some not, etc. The American POV remains centered on the individual, that is, on individual free choice. Phil is thoroughly American, a self-identified and acting Jewish American individual.

See Annie’s comment as to your false claim Jews are more anti-religion than other groups. Christmas is in fact treated as a secular holiday by a very significant number of Americans, many who don’t even go to church on this holiday, let alone the rest of the year. As one obvious example, read up on how Rome is very aware and anxious about Catholic Americans’ individual interpretation of their faith.

The American Jewish Committee poll administered mid March and released today at the end of April shows that only 14% U.S. Jews attend (non-Simcha) services in temples or synagogue once a week or more. 31% never go to Shul; 27% say they attend “a few times a year” and 16% say they attend services once a year or less.

The stats for Americans:Gallup International indicates that 41%[1] of American citizens report they regularly attend religious services, compared to 15% of French citizens, 10% of UK citizens,[2] and 7.5% of Australian citizens.[3]
However, Hadaway, Marler, and Chaves found during the early 1990s that church attendance was only about 20% on an average Sunday in one rural Ohio county, whereas self-reported church attendance was 36%. Many people over-report church attendance because of their self-perception and identity as churchgoing people; this indicates a certain psychological aspect to the overreporting of church attendance. Although questions of church attendance are intended by polling organizations to study Americans’ religious behavior, many respondents view them as questions about their identity. This is especially true among those Americans who consider themselves “regular churchgoers.” Despite many news outlets attempting to cash in on these findings by claiming that Americans “lie” about their church attendance, Hadaway et al. have been extremely wary of accusing these over-reporters of dishonesty; as they found in one study, those who over-report do so mainly to maintain perceptions of themselves as “churched” Americans, not because they are afraid to reveal to the interviewer that they are “bad Christians.”[4]
In a 2006 online Harris Poll (they stated that the magnitude of errors cannot be estimated due to sampling errors, non-response,etc.; 2,010 U.S. adults were surveyed)[5] found that only 26% of those surveyed attended religious services “every week or more often”, 9% went “once or twice a month”, 21% went “a few times a year”, 3% went “once a year”, 22% went “less than once a year”, and 18% never attend religious services. An identical survey by Harris in 2003 found that only 26% of those surveyed attended religious services “every week or more often”, 11% went “once or twice a month” 19% went “a few times a year”, 4% went “once a year”, 16% went “less than once a year”, and 25% never attend religious services.

to summarize:
26% – 41% for Americans, with 14% for Jewish Americans. That is a substantial difference.

yes it is a very big difference yonah. but i have a question for you. when i visited israel they asked me what my religion was and i said none. they would not take that for an answer. iow, i was required to identify as a ‘religious person’. they asked my grandparents religion and thus identified me as christian.

so, back to your study. you do realize within that 41% are all the practicing muslims, jews, christians, buddists, wiccans, etc in america? so your statement 26% – 41% for Americans, with 14% for Jewish Americans. implies the ‘americans’ category doesn’t include the 14% jewish americans, which it does.

of the remaining 59% how many would israel identify as christian? and how many of the 59% would self identify as christian? and how many of the 86% of jewish americans who do not attend services still attend passover dinners with their families or friends? iow, are they completely non religious? and if they are why do you think they still identify as jewish whereas a person such as myself would not identify as a christian?

your link:

The American Jewish Committee poll administered mid March and released today at the end of April shows that only 14% U.S. Jews attend (non-Simcha) services in temples or synagogue once a week or more. 31% never go to Shul; 27% say they attend “a few times a year” and 16% say they attend services once a year or less.

iow, the 26% who consider themselves ‘just jewish’ is the number of jews who are non religious. frankly, i think that number is probably, or could be, very similar to the percentage of americans like myself whose ancestors were christians and who no longer consider themselves christians because they are not religious. this would be less than 1/2 of the 59%, but it could easily be more. there’s probably not some special non religious gene jews have, it’s likely as many jewish americans are non religious as ex christian americans, the ones israel would call ‘christians’ … like me.

Comment posted, damage done: Online battle for Israel’s hasbara
Internet pages are fighting ring where Israel supporters try to ward off millions of pro-Palestinian posters. In hectic, viral world of talkbacks, every photo is replied, every reply is commented on, every comment has minute-long shelf life before it is challenged by rivals
by Eyal Lehmann, Published: 09.18.13, 19:04 / Israel News

EDIT: With a sidebar about Europe’s institutionalized anti-Semitism. Sigh. What’s institutionalized is the accusation of anti-Semitism, over, and over, and over again. Will it be a self-fulfilling prophecy?

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